THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 
OF  CALIFORNIA 


GIFT  OF 


C.  G.   Roberts 


THE   PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 


THE 


PRESIDENT'S    WORDS: 


Selection  of 


FROM    THK 


SPEECHES, '  ADDRESSES,    AND    LETTERS 


OF 


ABEAHAM    LI^TCOL^T. 


"  All  goes  well  with  ua.    Every  thing  seems  quiet  now." 

A.  LINCOLN:  Telegram,  April  2. 


BOSTON: 

WALKER,  FULLER,  AND   COMPANY, 

245,  WASHINGTON  STRICT. 
1865. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1865,  by 

WALKER,   FULLER,  AND   COMPANY, 
In  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  District  of  Massachusetts. 


THIRD    THOUSAND. 


GIFT 


BOSTON : 

STEREOTYPED  AND   PRINTED  BY  JOHN  WILSON  AND   SON, 
No.  lo,  Water  Street. 


Hit,. 


INTRODUCTION. 


THE  funeral  service  of  the  i9th  of  April,  1865,  was 
the  most  impressive  religious  service  ever  held  in 
this  country.  By  one  impulse,  the  people  of  the 
land  thronged  the  churches,  which,  at  the  hour  of 
the  funeral  of  the  President,  were  everywhere  open. 
At  that  hour,  more  people  in  this  land  united  in  the 
public  worship  of  God,  than  ever  united  in  such 
service  on  any  day  before.  In  Massachusetts,  the 
day  has  been  historical  for  nearly  two  centuries.  It 
is  now  marked  by  one  more  association,  which  will 
remain  in  memory  till  the  young  children  of  this 
generation  have  grown  old  and  passed  away. 

This  little  book,  which  we  call  "  The  President's 
Words,"  had  its  origin  in  the  funeral  services  of 
that  day.  The  ministers  of  different  churches,  who 
had  to  conduct  those  services,  felt,  of  course,  the 
impossibility  of  saying  any  thing  which  could  give 
any  additional  precision  to  the  lesson  which  the 
hour  itself  proclaimed.  It  certainly  seemed  to  me 

439  rv! 


1 


VI  INTRODUCTION. 

most  fit  to  read  from  the  President's  own  words,  of 
trust  in  the  people,  and  faith  in  God,  some  of  the 
expressions  in  which  for  years  he  had  been  the 
providential  teacher  of  this  nation.  It  was,  of 
course,  impossible,  on  such  an  occasion,  to  read 
more  than  a  few  of  these. 

These  selections  attracted  the  attention  of  the  pub 
lishers  of  this  volume,  who  proposed  at  once  to 
publish  a  collection  of  the  President's  more  memo 
rable  sayings,  and  asked  me  to  prepare  it  for  the 
press.  I  was  very  glad  to  contribute  to  it  such 
epigrams  and  aphorisms  as  I  remembered,  and  had 
collected,  from  the  addresses  by  which  Mr.  Lincoln 
instructed  this  country  in  the  principles  of  its  own 
institutions. 

We  knew,  however,  that  it  was  desirable  to  make 
as  full  a  collection  as  possible ;  and  my  friend,  Mr. 
John  Williams,  to  whose  advice  and  assistance  I  am 
every  day  indebted,  undertook  the  careful  reading 
of  every  speech  and  letter  of  Mr.  Lincoln's,  which 
has  been  published,  with  a  view  to  the  diligent  selec 
tion  from  them  all,  which  he  has  made  and  arranged 
for  this  volume.  To  the  skill  with  which  he  has 
done  this  work,  the  reader  is  indebted  for  its  close 
condensation  of  the  most  striking  thoughts  which 
the  President  has  uttered  in  his  public  life. 


INTRODUCTION.  VII 

We  have  arranged  them  under  five  general  heads, 
which  will  facilitate  reference.  Within  those  sub 
divisions,  they  are,  in  general,  in  the  order  of  time. 
Evepy  one  knows  that  Mr.  Lincoln  was  taught  by 
experience.  "  I  claim  not  to  have  controlled 
events,"  he  said ;  "I  confess  plainly  that  events 
have  controlled  me."  It  has  seemed  most  fair, 
therefore,  to  show,  as  far  as  might  be,  the  process 
of  the  gradual  formation  of  his  opinions.  In  gene 
ral,  we  have  printed  only  brief  memorabilia,  sepa 
rated  even  from  their  immediate  connection.  The 
last  Inaugural,  however,  —  his  last  long  speech, — 
and  one  or  two  letters,  are  printed  in  full. 

It  has  been  matter  of  regret  to  us,  that  we  could 
not  with  propriety  put  in  print  the  conversational 
sayings  which  are  so  widely  accredited  to  him. 
But  it  will  be  readily  admitted,  that  such  a  collec 
tion,  at  this  time,  should  not  be  attempted. 

On  the  day  of  the  funeral,  in  an  address  at  Con 
cord,  Mr.  R.  W.  Emerson  thus  characterized  these 
brief  utterances :  — 

"  He  is  the  author  of  a  multitude  of  good  say 
ings,  so  disguised  as  pleasantries  that  it  is  certain 
they  had  no  reputation  at  first  but  as  jests ;  and 
only  later,  by  the  very  acceptance  and  adoption  they 
find  in  the  mouths  of  millions,  turn  out  to  be  the 


Vlll  INTRODUCTION. 

wisdom  of  the  hour.  I  am  sure,  if  this  man  had 
ruled  in  a  period  of  less  facility  of  printing,  he 
would  have  become  mythological  in  a  very  few 
years,  like  ./Esop  or  Pilpay,  or  one  of  the  Seven 
Wise  Masters,  by  his  fables  and  proverbs. 

"  But  the  weight  and  penetration  of  many 
passages  in  his  letters,  messages,  and  speeches, 
hidden  now  by  the  very  closeness  of  their  applica 
tion  to  the  moment,  are  destined  hereafter  to  a  wide 
fame.  What  pregnant  definitions !  what  unerring 
common  sense  !  what  foresight !  and,  on  great  occa 
sions,  what  lofty,  and,  more  than  national,  what 
humane  tone  !  His  brief  speech  at  Gettysburg  will 
not  easily  be  surpassed  by  words  on  any  recorded 
occasion.  This,  and  one  other  American  speech, 
that  of  John  Brown  to  the  court  that  tried  him,  and 
a  part  of  Kossuth's  speech  at  Birmingham,  can  only 
be  compared  with  each  other,  and  with  no  fourth." 

To  such  authoritative  criticism  on  the  President's 
words  I  can  add  nothing. 

EDWARD   E.    HALE. 
BOSTON,  May  18,  1865. 


POLITICAL   SYSTEMS. 


THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 


POLITICAL  SYSTEMS. 

THE  PEOPLE,  THE  CONSTITUTION,  AND  THE   LAWS. 

FREE  LABOR. 

R  Government  was  not  established  that  one 
man  might  do  with  himself  as  he  pleases,  and 
with  another  man  too.  ...  I  say,  that,  whereas 
God  Almighty  has  given  every  man  one  mouth  to 
be  fed,  and  one  pair  of  hands  adapted  to  furnish 
food  for  that  mouth,  if  any  thing  can  be  proved  to 
be  the  will  of  Heaven,  it  is  proved  by  this  fact,  that 
that  mouth  is  to  be  fed  by  those  hands,  without 
being  interfered  with  by  any  other  man,  who  has 
also  his  mouth  to  feed,  and  his  hands  to  labor  with. 
I  hold,  if  the  Almighty  had  ever  made  a  set  of  men 
that  should  do  all  the  eating  and  none  of  the  work, 
he  would  have  made  them  with  mouths  only,  and 
no  hands ;  and  if  he  had  ever  made  another  class, 
that  he  had  intended  should  do  all  the  work  and 
none  of  the  eating,  he  would  have  made  them  with 
out  mouths  and  with  all  hands.  —  September,  1859. 


12  THE    PRESIDENTS    WORDS. 

HIRED   LABOR. 

"IV  /TY  understanding  of  the  hired  laborer  is  this : 
A  young  man  finds  himself  of  an  age  to  be  dis 
missed  from  parental  control ;  he  has  for  his  capital 
nothing,  save  two  strong  hands  that  God  has  given 
him,  a  heart  willing  to  labor,  and  a  freedom  to 
choose  the  mode  of  his  work  and  the  manner  of  his 
employer ;  he  has  got  no  soil  nor  shop,  and  he 
avails  himself  of  the  opportunity  of  hiring  himself 
to  some  man  who  has  capital  to  pay  him  a  fair 
day's  wages  for  a  fair  day's  work.  lie  is  benefited 
by  availing  himself  of  that  privilege.  He  works 
industriously ;  he  behaves  soberly ;  and  the  result 
of  a  year  or  two's  labor  is  a  surplus  of  capital. 
Now  he  buys  land  on  his  own  hook ;  he  settles, 
marries,  begets  sons  and  daughters ;  and,  in  course 
of  time,  he  too  has  enough  capital  to  hire  some  new 
beginner.  —  September,  1859. 

GOOD    TEMPER. 

T  SHALL  endeavor  to  take  the  ground  I  deem  most 
•*•  just  to  the  North,  the  South,  the  East,  the  West, 
and  the  whole  country.  I  take  it,  I  hope,  in  good 
temper,  certainly  with  no  malice  towards  any  sec- 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  13 

tion.  I  shall  do  all  that  may  be  in  my  power  to 
promote  a  peaceful  settlement  of  all  our  difficulties. 
The  man  does  not  live  who  is  more  devoted  to 
peace  than  I  am.  None  would  do  more  to  pre 
serve  it ;  but  it  may  be  necessary  to  put  the  foot 
down  firmly. — February,  1862. 


NA  TURALIZA  TION. 

A  S  I  understand  the  spirit  of  our  institutions,  it 
is  designed  to  promote  the  elevation  of  men. 
I  am  therefore  hostile  to  any  thing  that  tends  to  their 
debasement.  It  is  well  known  that  I  deplore  the 
oppressed  condition  of  the  blacks ;  and  it  would 
therefore  be  very  inconsistent  for  me  to  look  with 
approval  upon  any  measure  that  infringes  upon  the 
inalienable  rights  of  white  men,  whether  or  not 
they  are  born  in  another  land,  or  speak  a  different 
language  from  our  own.  —  May,  1859. 


SQUATTER  SOVEREIGNTY 

T  ADMIT  that  the  emigrant  to  Kansas  and  Ne- 
•*•  braska  is  competent  to  govern  himself;  but  I 
deny  his  right  to  govern  any  other  person,  with 
out  that  person's  consent. 


14  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

SENATOR   OR  PRESIDENT. 

IV /TR.  LINCOLN  was  urged  by  some  of  his 
-*•  friends  not  to  corner  Douglas  on  the  point  of 
''  unfriendly  legislation,"  because  he  would  surely 
stand  by  his  doctrine  of  Squatter  Sovereignty,  in 
defiance  of  the  Dred-Scott  decision ;  "  and  that," 
said  they,  "  will  make  him  Senator."  "  That  may 
be,"  said  Mr.  Lincoln  ;  "  but,  if  he  takes  that  shoot, 
he  never  can  be  President." —  June,  18.58. 


IN  INDEPENDENCE  HALL. 

the  country  be  saved  upon  the  basis  of 
liberty  and  equality,  as  set  forth  in  the  Decla 
ration  of  Independence? 

If  it  can,  I  will  consider  myself  one  of  the  hap 
piest  men  in  the  world,  if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  If 
it  cannot  be  saved  upon  that  principle,  it  will  be 
truly  awful.  But,  if  this  country  cannot  be  saved 
without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was  about  to 
say,  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  on  this  spot 
than  surrender  it.  ...  I  have  said  nothing  but  what 
I  am  willing  to  live  by,  and,  if  it  be  the  pleasure  of 
Almighty  God,  die  by.  —  February,  1861. 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  15 

UTA  H. 

TT  is  very  plain,  the  Judge  evades  the  only  ques- 
tion  the  Republicans  have  ever  pressed  upon  the 
Democracy  in  regard  to  Utah.  That  question  the 
Judge  well  knew  to  be  this :  "If  the  people  of 
Utah  shall  peacefully  form  a  State  Constitution,  tol 
erating  polygamy,  will  the  Democracy  admit  them 
into  the  Union  ?  " 

There  is  nothing  in  the  United-States  Constitu 
tion  or  law  against  polygamy  ;  and  why  is  it  not  a 
part  of  the  Judge's  "sacred  right  of '  self-govern 
ment  "  for  the  people  to  have  it,  or  rather  to  keep 
it,  if  they  choose?  These  questions,  so  far  as  I 
know,  the  Judge  never  answers.  It  might  involve 
the  Democracy  to  answer  them  either  way,  —  and 
they  go  unanswered. —  June,  1857. 


THE  DECLARATION  A    WRECK. 

T  ET  us  hear  Judge  Douglas's  view  of  that  part 
•*--'  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  which 
declares  that  "  all  men  are  created  equal."  Here  it 
is  :  "  No  man  can  vindicate  the  character,  motives, 
and  conduct  of  the  signers  of  the  Declaration  of  In- 


1 6  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

dependence,  except  upon  the  hypothesis  that  they 
referred  to  the  white  race  alone,  and  not  to  the 
African,  when  they  declared  all  men  to  have  been 
created  equal ;  that  they  were  speaking  of  British 
subjects  on  this  continent,  being  equal  to  British 
subjects  born  and  residing  in  Great  Britain."  .  .  . 
My  good  friends,  read  that  carefully  over,  some 
leisure  hour,  and  ponder  well  upon  it :  see  what  a 
mere  wreck,  mangled  ruin,  it  makes  of  our  once- 
glorious  Declaration  of  Independence.  ...  I  had 
thought  the  Declaration  promised  something  better 
than  the  condition  of  British  subjects ;  but,  no :  it 
only  meant  that  we  should  be  equal  to  them  in  their 
own  oppressed  and  unequal  condition.  According 
to  that,  it  gave  no  promise,  that,  having  kicked  oft' 
the  king  and  lords  of  Great  Britain,  we  should  not 
at  once  be  saddled  with  a  king  and  lords  of  our 
own.  ...  I  understand,  you  are  preparing  to  cele 
brate  the  "Fourth"  to-morrow  week.  .  .  .  Suppose, 
after  you  read  the  Declaration  once,  in  the  old-fash 
ioned  way,  you  read  it  once  more,  with  Judge 
Douglas's  version.  It  will  run  thus  :  "  We  hold 
these  truths  to  be  self-evident,  that  all  British  sub 
jects  who  were  on  this  continent  eighty-one  years 
ago  were  created  equal  to  all  British  subjects  born 
and  then  residing  in  Great  Britain. —  June,  1857. 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS. 


PA  T I E  NT. 

'THHERE  is  one  other  thing  I  will  say  to  you,  in 
•-*•  this  relation.  It  is  but  my  opinion  :  I  give  it 
to  you  without  a  fee.  It  is  my  opinion,  that  it  is 
for  you  to  take  him,  or  be  defeated ;  and  that,  if 
you  do  take  him,  you  may  be  defeated.  You  will 
merely  be  beaten  if  you  do  not  take  him.  We,  the 
Republicans,  and  others  forming  the  opposition  of 
the  country,  intend  to  "  stand  by  our  guns,"  to  be 
patient  and  firm,  and,  in  the  long-run,  to  beat  you, 
whether  you  take  him.  or  not.  We  know,  that,  be 
fore  we  fairly  beat  you,  we  have  to  beat  you  both 
together.  We  know  that  you  are  "  all  of  a  fea 
ther,"  and  that  we  have  to  beat  you  all  together ; 
and  we  expect  to  do  it.  We  don't  intend  to  be  very 
impatient  about  it.  We  mean  to  be  as  deliberate 
and  calm  about  it  as  it  is  possible  to  be,  but  as 
firm  and  resolved  as  it  is  possible  for  men  to  be.  — 
August,  1858. 


HOW  DID    THE   FATHERS   ACT?' 

T  SEE,  in  the  Judge's  speech  here,  a  short  sen- 

tence  in  these  words  :  "  Our  fathers,  when  they 

formed  this  government  under  which  we  live,  un~ 


i8  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

dcrstood  this  question  just  as  well,  and  better,  than 
we  do  now."  That  is  true  ;  I  stick  to  that.  I  will 
stand  by  Judge  Douglas  in  that  to  the  bitter  end. 

And  now,  Judge  Douglas,  come  and  stand  by  me, 
and  truthfully  show  how  they  afted,  understanding 
it  better  than  we  do.  All  I  ask  of  you,  Judge 
Douglas,  is  to  stick  to  the  proposition,  that  the  men 
of  the  Revolution  understood  this  subject  better  than 
we  do  now  ;  and,  ivith  that  better  understanding, 
they  adcd  better  than  you  are  trying  to  acl  now. 
—  September,  1859. 

BONE    OF  CONTENTION. 

TT  is  proposed,  and  carried,  to  blot  out  the  old 
dividing  line  of  thirty-four  years'  standing,  and 
to  open  the  whole  of  that  country  to  the  introduc 
tion  of  slavery.  Now  this,  to  my  mind,  is  manifestly 
unjust.  After  an  angry  and  dangerous  controversy, 
the  parties  made  friends  by  dividing  the  bone  of 
contention.  The  one  party  first  appropriates  her 
own  share,  beyond  all  power  to  be  disturbed  in  the 
possession  of  it,  and  then  seizes  the  share  of  the 
other  party.  It  is  as  if  two  starving  men  had 
divided  their  only  loaf;  the  one  had  hastily  swal 
lowed  his  half,  and  then  grabbed  the  other's  half 
just  as  he  was  putting  it  to  his  mouth.  —  Oclobcr, 
1854. 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS. 


NO  MAN  IS  GOOD  ENOUGH  TO  GOVERN 
ANOTHER  MAN,  WITHOUT  THAT  MAN'S 
CONSENT. 

"OUT  one  argument  in  the  support  of  the  repeal 
of  the  Missouri  Compromise  is  still  to  come. 
That  argument  is  "  the  sacred  right  of  self-govern 
ment."  It  seems  our  distinguished  Senator  has 
found  great  difficulty  in  getting  his  antagonists,  even 
in  the  Senate,  to  meet  him  fairly  on  this  argument. 
Some  poet  has  said,  "  Fools  rush  in  where  angels 
fear  to  tread." 

At  the  hazard  of  being  thought  one  of  the  fools 
of  this  quotation,  I  meet  that  argument,  —  I  rush  in, 
—  I  take  that  bull  by  the  horns.  ...  I  say  that, 
that  no  man  is  good  enough  to  govern  another  man 
'without  that  other's  consent.  I  say,  this  is  the  lead 
ing  principle,  the  sheet-anchor  of  American  Repub 
licanism.  Our  Declaration  of  Independence  says  : 
"That,  to  secure  these  rights,  governments  are  insti 
tuted  among  men,  DERIVING  THEIR  JUST  POWERS 

FROM    THE    CONSENT    OF    THE    GOVERNED."      Now, 

the  relation  of  master  and  slave  is,  pro  tanto,  a  total 
violation  of  their  principle.  The  master  not  only 
governs  the  slave  without  his  consent,  but  he  gov 
erns  him  by  a  set  of  rules  altogether  different  from 


20  THE    PRESIDENT  S    WORDS. 

those  which  he  prescribes  for  himself.  Allow  ALL 
the  governed  an  equal  voice  in  the  government ;  and 
that,  and  that  only,  is  self-government.  ...  If  it  is 
a  sacred  right  for  the  people  of  Nebraska  to  take 
and  hold  slaves  there,  it  is  equally  their  sacred  right 
to  buy  them  where  they  can  buy  them  cheapest ; 
and  that,  undoubtedly,  will  be  on  the  coast  of 
Africa,  provided  you  will  consent  not  to  hang  them 
for  going  there  to  buy  them.  .  .  .  He  (the  African 
slave-dealer)  honestly  buys  them  at  the  rate  of 
about  a  red  cotton  handkerchief  a  head.  This  is 
very  cheap ;  and  it  is  a  great  abridgment  of  the 
"  sacred  right  of  self-government"  to  hang  men 
for  engaging  in  this  profitable  trade.  —  Ottober, 
1854. 


MEXICAN    WAR. 

,  sir,  for  the  purpose  of  obtaining  the  very 
'  best  evidence  as  to  whether  Texas  had  actually 
carried  her  revolution  to  the  place  where  the  hostili 
ties  of  the  present  war  commenced,  let  the  Presi 
dent  answer  the  interrogatories  I  proposed.  Let 
him  answer  fully,  fairly,  and  candidly.  Let  him 
answer  withj^^,  not  arguments.  Let  him  remem 
ber  he  sits  where  Washington  sat ;  and,  so  remem- 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  21 

bering,  let  him  answer  as  Washington  would  answer. 
As  a  nation  should  not,  and  the  Almighty  will  not, 
be  evaded,  so  let  him  attempt  no  evasion,  no  equivo 
cation.  .  .  .  But,  if  he  can  not  or  will  not  do  this ; 
if,  on  any  pretence  or  no  pretence,  he  shall  refuse  or 
omit  it,  —  then  I  shall  he  fully  convinced  of  what  I 
more  than  suspect  already,  that  he  is  deeply  con 
scious  of  being  in  the  wrong  ;  that  he  feels  the  blood 
of  this  war,  like  the  blood  of  Abel,  is  crying  to 
heaven  against  him  ;  that  he  ordered  General  Tay 
lor  into  the  midst  of  a  peaceful  Mexican  settlement 
purposely  to  bring  on  a  war ;  .  .  .  and,  trusting  to 
escape  scrutiny  by  fixing  the  public  gaze  upon  the 
exceeding  brightness  of  military  glory,  —  that  attrac 
tive  rainbow  that  rises  in  showers  of  blood ;  that 
serpent's  eye,  that  charms  to  destroy,  —  he  plunged 
into  it,  and  has  swept  on  and  on,  till,  disappointed 
in  his  calculation  of  the  ease  with  which  Mexico 
might  be  subdued,  he  now  finds  himself,  he  knows 
not  where. 

MR.    FOLK'S    FEVER-DREAM. 

T  TOW  like  the  half-insane  mumbling  of  a  fever- 

dream    is   the   whole   war-part   of   the   late 

message  !  —  at  one  time,  telling  us  that  Mexico  has 

nothing  whatever  that  we  can  get  but  territory  ;  at 


22  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

another,  showing  us  how  we  can  support  the  war  by 
levying  contributions  on  Mexico.  ...  As  I  have 
before  said,  he  knows  not  where  he  is.  He  is  a 
bewildered,  confounded,  and  miserably  perplexed 
man.  God  grant  he  may  be  able  to  show  there  is 
not  something  about  his  conscience  more  painful 
than  all  his  mental  perplexity ! 


JOHN  BROWN. 

JOHN  BROWN'S  effort  was  peculiar.  It  was 
an  attempt  by  white  men  to  get  up  a  revolt 
among  slaves,  in  which  the  slaves  refused  to  partici 
pate.  In  fact,  it  was  so  absurd,  that  the  slaves,  with 
all  their  ignorance,  saw  plainly  enough  it  could 
not  succeed.  .  .  .  An  enthusiast  broods  over  the 
oppression  of  a  people  till  he  fancies  himself  com 
missioned  by  Heaven  to  liberate  them.  He  ventures 
the  attempt,  which  ends  in  little  else  than  in  his  own 
execution.  Orsini's  attempt  on  Louis  Napoleon, 
and  John  Brown's  attempt  at  Harper's  Ferry,  were, 
in  their  philosophy,  precisely  the  same.  The  eager 
ness  to  cast  blame  on  Old  England  in  the  one  case, 
and  on  New  England  in  the  other,  does  not  dis 
prove  the  sameness  of  the  two  things.  —  Febru 
ary,  1860. 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  23 

COOL! 

~D  UT  you  will  not  abide  the  election  of  a  Repub- 
~^"^  lican  President.  In  that  supposed  event,  you 
say,  you  will  destroy  the  Union  ;  and  then,  you  say, 
the  great  crime  of  having  destroyed  it  will  be  upon 
us. 

That  is  cool.  A  highwayman  holds  a  pistol  to 
my  ear,  and  mutters  through  his  teeth,  "  Stand  and 
deliver,  or  I  shall  kill  you  ;  and  then  you  will  be  a 
murderer !  "  To  be  sure,  what  the  robber  demanded 
of  me — my  money  —  was  my  own,  and  I  had  a 
clear  right  to  keep  it :  but  it  was  no  more  my  own 
than  my  vote  is  my  own  ;  and  the  threat  of  death  to 
me,  to  extort  my  money,  and  the  threat  of  destruc 
tion  to  the  Union,  to  extort  my  vote,  can  scarcely  be 
distinguished  in  principle.  —  February,  1860. 


WHAT    WILL    SATISFT    THEM? 

TT  is  exceedingly  desirable  that  all  parts  of  this 
great  confederacy  shall  be  at  peace,  and  in  har 
mony  one  with  another.  Let  us  Republicans  do 
our  part  to  have  it  so.  Even  though  much  pro 
voked,  let  us  do  nothing  through  passion  and  ill- 


24  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

temper.  Even  though  the  Southern  people  will  not 
so  much  as  listen  to  us,  let  us  calmly  consider  their 
demands,  and  yield  to  them,  if,  in  our  deliberate 
view  of  our  duty,  we  possibly  can.  Judging  by  all 
they  say  and  do,  and  by  the  subject  and  nature  of 
their  controversy  with  us,  let  us  determine,  if  we 
can,  what  will  satisfy  them.  —  February,  1860. 


INSURRECTIONS. 

"VT'OU  charge  that  we  stir  up  insurrections  among 
your  slaves.  We  deny  it ;  and  what  is  your 
proof  ?  Harper's  Ferry !  John  Brown !  John 
Brown  was  no  Republican ;  and  you  have  failed  to 
implicate  a  single  Republican  in  his  Harper's  Ferry 
enterprise.  If  any  member  of  our  party  is  guilty 
in  that  matter,  you  know  it,  or  you  do  not  know  it. 
If  you  do  know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  to  not  desig 
nate  the  man,  and  prove  the  fact.  If  you  do  not 
(know  it,  you  are  inexcusable  to  assert  it,  and  espe 
cially  to  persist  in  the  assertion  after  you  have  tried 
and  failed  to  make  the  proof.  You  need  not  be 
told,  that  persisting  in  a  charge  which  one  does  not 
know  to  be  true,  is  simply  malicious  slander.  — 
February,  1860. 


POLITICAL   SYSTEMS.  2$ 

THE   CRISIS    WAS  ARTIFICIAL. 

WHAT,  then,  is  the  matter  with  them  (the 
South)?  Why  all  this  excitement?  Why 
all  these  complaints  ?  As  I  said  before,  this  crisis 
is  all  artificial.  It  has  no  foundation  in  fact.  It 
was  not  "  argued  up,"  as  the  saying  is,  and  cannot 
therefore  be  argued  down.  Let  it  alone,  and  it 
will  go  down  of  iteelf.  —  February,  iS)i. 


POLICT  OF  THE  FATHERS. 

"\7"OU  say  we  have  made  the  slavery  question 
more  prominent  than  it  formerly  was.  We 
deny  it.  We  admit  that  it  is  more  prominent ;  but 
we  deny  that  we  made  it  so.  It  was  not  we,  but 
you,  who  discarded  the  old  policy  of  the  fathers. 
We  resisted,  and  still  resist,  your  innovation ;  and 
thence  comes  the  greater  prominence  of  the  ques 
tion.  Would  you  have  that  question  reduced  to  its 
former  proportions?  Go  back  to  that  old  policy. 
What  has  been  will  be  again,  under  the  same  con 
ditions.  If  you  would  have  the  peace  of  the  old 
times,  re-adopt  the  precepts  and  policy  of  the  old 
times.  —  February,  1860. 


26  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 


U  N I  O  N". 

IpHYSICALLY  speaking,  we  cannot  separate. 
We  cannot  remove  our  respective  sections 
from  each  other,  and  build  an  impassable  wall  be 
tween  them.  A  husband  and  wife  may  be  divorced, 
and  go  out  of  the  presence  and  beyond  the  reach 
of  each  other ;  but  the  different  parts  of  our  country 
cannot  do  this.  They  cannot  but  remain  face  to 
face ;  and  intercourse,  either  amicable  or  hostile, 
must  continue  between  them.  —  March,  1861. 


CONTRACTS. 

TF  the  United  States  be  not  a  Government  proper, 
A  but  an  association  of  States  in  the  nature  of 
contract  merely,  can  it,  as  a  contract,  be  peaceably 
unmade  by  less  than  all  the  parties  who  made  it? 
One  party  to  a  contract  may  violate  it,  break  it,  so 
to  speak ;  but  does  it  not  require  all  to  lawfully 
rescind  it?  —  March,  1861. 

TWO  HEADS   OR   ONE. 

TT  has  been  said  that  one  bad  general  is  better 

than  two  good  ones  ;   and  the  saying  is  true,  if 

taken  to  mean  no  more  than  that  an  army  is  better 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS. 


directed  by  a  single  mind,  though  inferior,  than  by 
two  superior  ones  at  variance  and  cross-purposes 
with  each  other.  —  December,  1861. 


KEEP  COOL. 

"JV/TY  countrymen,  and  all,  think  calmly  and  well 
upon  this  whole  subject.  Nothing  valuable 
can  be  lost  by  taking  time.  If  there  be  an  object 
to  hurry  any  of  you,  in  hot  haste,  to  a  step  which 
you  would  never  take  deliberately,  that  object  will 
be  frustrated  by  taking  time ;  but  no  good  object 
can  be  frustrated  by  it.  —  March,  1861. 


NOT  FOR   US  IS  AGAINST  US. 

rT~^HE  good  old  maxims  of  the  Bible  are  appli- 
cable,  and  truly  applicable,  to  human  affairs ; 
and  in  this,  as  in  many  other  things,  we  may  say 
here,  that  "  he  who  is  not  for  us  is  against  us." 
"  He  who  gathereth  not  with  us,  scattereth." 

I  should  be  glad  to  have  some  of  the  many  good 
and  able  and  noble  men  of  the  South,  to  place 
themselves  where  we  can  confer  upon  them .  the 
high  honor  of  an  election,  upon  one  or  other  end  of 
our  ticket.  It  would  do  my  soul  good  to  do  that 


28  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

thing.  It  would  enable  us  to  teach  them,  that,  inas 
much  as  we  select  one  of  their  own  number  to  carry 
out  their  principles,  we  are  free  from  the  charge, 
that  we  mean  more  than  we  say.  —  September, 


THE  ISSUE  IS    WITH  THE  SOUTH. 

TN  your  hands,  my  dissatisfied  fellow-countrymen, 
and  not  in  mine,  is  the  momentous  issue  of 
civil  war.  The  Government  will  not  assail  you. 
You  can  have  no  conflict,  without  being  yourselves 
the  aggressors.  Tou  have  no  oath,  registered  in 
heaven,  to  destroy  the  Government  ;  while  I  shall 
have  the  most  solemn  one  to  "  preserve,  protect, 
and  defend  it."  —  March,  1861. 


COERCION  AND  INVASION. 

"OUT  if  the  United  States  should  merely  hold  and 
^-^  retake  its  own  forts  and  other  property,  and 
collect  the  duties  on  foreign  importations,  or  even 
withhold  the  mails  from  places  where  they  are 
habitually  violated,  would  any,  or  all  these  things, 
be  "  invasion  "  or  "  coercion  "  ?  Do  our  professed 
lovers  of  the  Union,  but  who  spitefully  resolve  that 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  2£ 

they  will  resist  coercion  and  invasion,  understand 
that  such  things  as  these  on  the  part  of  the  United 
States  would  be  coercion  or  invasion  of  a  State? 
If  so,  their  ideas  of  means  to  preserve  the  object  of 
their  affections  would  seem  exceedingly  thin  and 
airy.  If  sick,  the  little  pills  of  the  homoeopathists 
would  be  much  too  large  for  it  to  swallow.  In 
their  view,  the  Union,  as  a  family  relation,  would 
seem  to  be  no  regular  marriage,  but  a  sort  of  "  free- 
love"  arrangement,  to  be  maintained  only  on  "pas 
sional  attraction."  —  February,  1861. 

THE  RULE  OF  THE  MINORITY  IS  AN  ARCH  T 

OR  DESPOTISM. 

|_)L AINLY  the  central  idea  of  secession  is  the 
essence  of  anarchy.  A  majority,  held  in  re 
straint  by  constitutional  checks  and  limitations,  and 
always  changing  easily  with  deliberate  changes  of 
popular  opinions  and  sentiments,  is  the  only  true 
sovereign  of  a  free  people.  Whoever  rejects  it, 
does,  of  necessity,  fly  to  anarchy  or  to  despotism. 
Unanimity  is  impossible ;  the  rule  of  a  minority,  as 
a  permanent  arrangement,  is  wholly  inadmissible  ; 
so  that,  rejecting  the  majority's  principle,  anarchy 
and  despotism,  in  some  form,  is  all  that  is  left.  — 
March  4,  1861. 


30  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

THE   OBLIGATION. 

A  LL  members  of  Congress  swear  their  support 
to  the  whole  Constitution, —  to  this  provision 
as  well  as  any  other.  To  this  proposition,  then, 
that  slaves,  whose  cases  come  within  the  terms  of 
this  clause,  "  shall  be  delivered  up,"  their  oaths  are 
unanimous.  Now,  if  they  would  make  the  effort, 
in  good  temper,  could  they  not,  with  nearly  equal 
unanimity,  frame  and  pass  a  law  by  means  of 
which  to  kccpg-ood  that  unanimous  oath?  —  March, 
1861. 


HOW  SHOULD  IT  BE  KEPT? 

*  I  "HERE  is  some  difference  of  opinion,  whether 
this  clause  should  be  enforced  by  National  or 
by  State  authority ;  but,  surely,  that  difference  is  not 
a  very  material  one.  If  the  slave  is  to  be  surren 
dered,  it  can  be  of  but  little  consequence  to  him, 
or  to  others,  by  which  authority  it  is  done.  And 
should  any  one,  in  any  case,  be  content  that  his 
oath  shall  go  imkept,  on  a  merely  unsubstantial 
controversy  as  to  hoiv  it  shall  be  kept?  —  Afarch, 
rS6i. 


A 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  3! 

LIBERT TS  SAVING   CLAUSE. 

GAIN,  in  any  law  upon  this  subject,  ought  not 
all  the  safeguards  of  liberty,  known  in  civil 
ized  and  human  jurisprudence,  to  be  introduced,  so 
that  a  free  man  be  not,  in  any  case,  surrendered  as 
a  slave  f  And  might  it  not  be  well,  at  the  same 
time,  to  provide  by  law  for  the  enforcement  of  that 
clause  in  the  Constitution  which  guarantees,  that 
"  the  citizens  of  each  State  shall  be  entitled  to 
all  the  privileges  and  immunities  of  citizens  in 
the  several  States" — March,  1861. 


TO    THE  LAWS  AND   THE   CONSTITUTION. 

T  TAKE  the  official  oath,  to-day,  with  no  mental 
reservations,  and  with  no  purpose  to  construe 
the  Constitution  or  laws  by  any  hypercritical  rules. 
And,  while  I  do  not  choose  now  to  specify  partic 
ular  acts  of  Congress  as  proper  to  be  enforced, 
I  do  suggest,  that  it  will  be  much  safer  for  all,  both 
in  official  and  private  stations,  to  conform  to  and 
abide  by  all  those  acts  which  stand  unrepealed, 
than  to  violate  any  of  them,  trusting  to  find  impu 
nity  in  having  them  held  to  be  unconstitutional.  — 
March,  1861. 


32  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 


ARE   THE  DECISIONS  IN  THE  SUPREME 
COURT  IRREVOCABLE? 

"XT  7HILE  it  is  obviously  possible  that  a  decision 
in  the  Supreme  Court  may  be  erroneous  in 
any  given  case,  still  the  evil  effect  following  it, 
being  limited  to  that  particular  case,  with  the  chance 
that  it  may  be  overruled,  and  never  become  a  pre 
cedent  for  other  cases,  can  better  be  borne  than 
could  the  evils  of  a  different  practice.  At  the  same 
time,  the  candid  citizen  must  confess,  that,  if  the 
policy  of  the  Government  upon  vital  questions  af 
fecting  the  whole  people  is  to  be  irrevocably  fixed 
by  decisions  of  the  SUPREME  COURT,  the  instant 
they  are  made  in  ordinary  litigation  between  parties 
in  personal  actions,  the  people  will  have  ceased  to 
be  their  own  rulers ;  having,  to  that  extent,  practi 
cally  resigned  their  government  into  the  hands  of 
that  eminent  tribunal.  —  March,  1861. 


NO   COMPROMISE. 

T  WILL  suffer  death  before  I  will  consent,  or  ad 
vise  my  friends  to  consent,  to  any  concession  or 
compromise  which  looks  like  buying  the  privilege 
of  taking  possession  of  the  Government,  to  which 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  33 

we  have  a  constitutional  right ;  because,  whatever  I 
might  think  of  the  merit  of  the  various  propositions 
before  Congress,  I  should  regard  any  concession,  in 
the  face  of  menace,  as  the  destruction  of  the  Gov 
ernment  itself,  and  a  consent,  on  all  hands,  that  our 
system  shall  be  brought  down  to  a  level  with  the 
existing  disorganized  state  of  affairs  in  Mexico. 
But  this  thing  will  hereafter  be,  as  it  is  now,  in  the 
hands  of  the  people ;  and  if  they  desire  to  call  a 
convention  to  remove  any  grievances  complained 
of,  or  to  give  new  guarantees  for  the  permanence  of 
vested  rights,  it  is  not  mine  to  oppose.  —  January, 
1861.  ^ 

FAITH,   HOPE,  AND  LOVE. 

F  AM  loath  to  close.     We  are  not  enemies,  but 

friends.     We  must  not  be  enemies.     Though 

passion  may  have  strained,  it  must  not  break  our 

bonds    of    affection.      THE    MYSTIC    CHORDS    OF 

MEMORY.  STRETCHING  FROM  EVERY  BATTLE-FIELD 
AND  PATRIOT  GRAVE  TO  EVERY  LIVING  HEART 
AND  HEARTH-STONE  ALL  OVER  THIS  BROAD  LAND, 
WILL  YET  SWELL  THE  CHORUS  OF  THE  UNION, 
WHEN  AGAIN  TOUCHED,  AS  SURELY  THEY  WILL 
BE,  BY  THE  BETTER  ANGELS  OF  OUR  NATURE. 

March,  1861. 

2*  C 


34  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

READ  FOR   THEMSELVES. 

TVTOT  having  as  yet  seen  occasion  to  change,  it 
is  now  my  purpose  to  pursue  the  course 
marked  out  in  the  Inaugural  Address.  I  commend 
a  careful  consideration  of  the  whole  document,  as 
the  best  expression  I  can  give  of  my  purposes. 
As  I  then  and  therein  said,  I  now  repeat.  —  April, 
1861. 

STANTON  AND  McCLELLAN. 

T^ELI^OW-CITIZENS,  —  I  believe  there  is  no 
precedent  for  my  appearing  before  you  on  this 
occasion  ;  but  it  is  also  true,  that  there  is  no  prece 
dent  for  your  being  here  yourselves  ;  and  I  offer,  in 
justification  of  myself  and  of  you,  that,  upon  exam 
ination,  I  have  found  nothing  in  the  Constitution 
against  it.  .  .  .  General  McClellan's  attitude  is  such 
that,  in  the  very  selfishness  of  his  nature,  he  cannot 
but  wish  to  be  successful,  and  I  hope  he  will; 
and  the  Secretary  of  War  is  in  precisely  the  same 
situation.  .  .  .  General  McClellan  has  sometimes 
asked  for  things  that  the  Secretary  of  War  did  not 
give  him.  General  McClellan  is  not  to  blame  for 
asking  what  he  wanted  and  needed ;  and  the  See- 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  35 

retary  of  War  is  not  to  blame  for  not  giving  when 
he  had  none  to  give.  —  August,  1862. 


GOD'S    REVELATIONS. 

r  I  "'HE  subject  presented  in  the  memorial  is  one 
upon  which  I  have  thought  much  for  weeks 
past,  and  I  may  even  say  for  months.  I  am  ap 
proached  with  the  most  opposite  opinions  and 
advice,  and  that  by  religious  men,  who  are  equally 
certain  that  they  represent  the  divine  will.  I  am 
sure  that  either  the  one  or  .the  other  class  is  mis 
taken  in  that  belief,  and  perhaps,  in  some  respect, 
both.  I  hope  it  will  not  be  irreverent  for  me  to  say, 
that  if  it  is  probable  that  God  would  reveal  his  will 
to  others,  on  a  point  so  connected  with  my  duty,  it 
might  be  supposed  he  would  reveal  it  directly  to 
me ;  for,  unless  I  am  more  deceived  in  myself  than 
I  often  am,  it  is  my  earnest  desire  to  know  the  will 
of  Providence  in  this  matter.  And,  if  I  can  learn 
ivhat  it  is,  I  will  do  it.  These  are  not,  however, 
the  days  of  miracles ;  and  I  suppose  it  will  be 
granted,  that  I  am  not  to  expect  a  direct  revelation. 
I  must  study  the  plain,  physical  fa d ls  of  the  case, 
ascertain  what  is  possible,  and  learn  what  appears 
to  be  wise  and  right.  —  Sept.  13,  1862. 


HOW  WILL  THE  BORDER  STATES  FEEL 
ABOUT  THE  PROCLAMATION  OF  EMAN 
CIPATION  ? 

T  WILL  mention  another  thing,  though  it  meet 
only  your  scorn  and  contempt.  There  are  fifty 
thousand  bayonets  in  the  Union  army  from  the  Bor 
der  Slave  States.  It  would  be  a  serious  matter,  if, 
in  consequence  of  a  proclamation  such  as  you  de 
sire,  they  should  go  over  to  the  rebels.  I  do  not 
think  they  all  would,  —  not  so  many  as  a  year  ago, 
or  as  six  months  ago,  —  not  so  many  to-day  as  yes 
terday.  Every  day  increases  their  Union  feeling. 
They  are  also  getting  their  pride  enlisted,  and  want 
to  beat  the  rebels.  Let  me  say  one  thing  more  :  I 
think  you  should  admit  that  we  have  already  an  im 
portant  principle,  to  rally  and  unite  the  people  on, 
in  the  fact  that  Constitutional  government  is  at 
stake.  This  is  a  fundamental  idea,  going  down  as 
deep  as  any  thing. —  September,  1862. 


IFS   AND    BUTS. 

r  I  "HE  man  who  stands  by  and  says  nothing,  when 
the  peril  of  his  Government  is  discussed,  can 
not  be  misunderstood.    If  not  hindered,  he  is  sure  to 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMyf.  37 

help  the  enemy  ;  much  more  j  if  lie  talks  ambiguous 
ly,  talks  for  his  country  with  Jfbuts  "  and  "  ifs  "  and 
"  ands."  .  .  .  Those  now  occupying  the  very  highest 
places  in  the  rebel  war  service  were  all  within  the 
power  of  the  Government  since  the  rebellion  began, 
and  were  nearly  as  well  kjiown  to  be  traitors  then 
as  now.  Unquestionably,  if  we  had  seized  and 
held  them,  the  insurgent  cause  would  be  much 
weaker.  But  no  one  of  them  had  then  committed 
any  crime  defined  in  the  law.  Every  one  of  them, 
if  arrested,  would  have  been  discharged  on  habeas 
corpus,  were  the  writ  allowed  to  operate.  In  view 
of  these  and  similar  cases,  I  think  the  time  not  un 
likely  to  come  when  I  shall  be  blamed  for  having 
made  too  few  arrests,  rather  than  too  many.  — June, 
1863.  ^ 

VALLANDIGHAM. 

experience  has  shown,  that  armies  cannot 
be  maintained  unless  desertions  shall  be  pun 
ished  by  the  severe  penalty  of  death.  The  case  re 
quires,  and  the  Law  and  the  Constitution  sanction, 
this  punishment.  Must  I  shoot  a  simple-minded 
soldier-boy  who  deserts,  while  I  must  not  touch  a 
hair  of  the  wily  agitator  who  induces  him  to 
desert?—  July,  1862. 


38  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

MILITARY  ELECTIONS. 
EXECUTIVE  MANSION,  WASHINGTON,  Nov.  21,  1862. 
T^VEAR  SIR,  —  Dr.  Kennedy,  bearer  of  this,  has 
"^^^  some  apprehension  that  Federal  officers,  not 
citizens  of  Louisiana,  may  be  set  up  as  candidates 
for  Congress  in  that  State.  In  my  view,  there  could 
be  no  possible  object  in  such  an  election.  .  .  .  To 
send  a  parcel  of  Northern  men  here  as  representa 
tives,  elected,  as  would  be  understood  (and  perhaps 
really  so),  at  the  point  of  the  bayonet,  would  be 
disgraceful  and  outrageous ;  and,  were  I  a  member 
of  Congress  here,  I  would  vote  against  admitting 
any  such  man  to  a  seat. 

Yours  very  truly,  A.  LINCOLN. 

Hon.  G.  F.  SHEPLEY. 


MISSOURI  RADICALS. 

TTT'ROM  time  to  time,  I  have  done  and  said  what 
appeared  to  me  proper  to  do  and  say.  The 
public  knows  it  well.  It  obliges  nobody  to  follow 
me  ;  and,  I  trust,  it  obliges  me  to  follow  nobody. 
The  Radicals  and  Conservatives  each  agree  with  me 
in  some  things,  and  disagree  in  others.  I  could 
wish  both  to  agree  with  me  in  all  things ;  for  then 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  39 

they  would  agree  with  each  other,  and  would  be 
too  strong  for  any  foe  from  any  quarter.  They, 
however,  choose  to  do  otherwise ;  and  I  do  not 
question  their  right.  I,  too,  shall  do  what  seems  to 
be  my  duty.  ...  It  is  my  duty  to  hear  all ;  but  at 
last  I  must,  within  my  sphere,  judge  what  to  do 
and  what  to  forbear. —  Ottober,  1863. 


HABEAS  CORPUS. 

'THHE  public  safety  renders  it  necessary  that  the 
grounds  of  these  arrests  should  at  present  be 
withheld  ;  but  at  the  proper  time  they  will  be  made 
public.  ...  In  no  case  has  an  arrest  been  made  on 
mere  suspicion,  or  through  personal  or  partisan 
animosities ;  but,  in  all  cases,  the  Government  is  in 
possession  of  tangible  and  unmistakable  evidence, 
which  will,  when  made  public,  be  satisfactory  to 
every  loyal  citizen. 


THE   FOUR    SIDES. 

/THHE    dissensions  between  Union  men  in  Mis- 

souri  are  due  solely  to  a  factious  spirit  which 

is    exceedingly   reprehensible.      The    two    parties 

ought  to  have  their  heads  knocked  together.    Either 


4-O  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

would  rather  see  the  defeat  of  their  adversary  than 
that  of  Jefferson  Davis. 

We  are  in  civil  war.  In  such  cases  there  al 
ways  is  a  main  question ;  but,  in  this  case,  that 
question  is  a  perplexing  compound,  —  Union  and 
slavery.  It  becomes  a  question,  not  of  two  sides 
merely,  but  of  at  least  four  sides,  even  among 
those  who  are  for  the  Union,  saying  nothing  of  those 
who  are  against  it.  Thus,  those  who  are  for  the 
Union  with,  but  not  without,  slavery ;  those  for  it 
without,  but  not  'with  ;  those  for  it  with  or  without, 
but  prefer  it  with;  and  those  for  it  with  or  with 
out,  but  prefer  it  without.  —  May,  1863. 


FREMONT,    BUTLER,    AND    SIGEL. 

TN  reply  to  a  delegation,  the  President  said,  that  it 
may  be  a  misfortune  for  the  nation  that  he  was 
elected  President.  But,  having  been  elected  by  the 
people,  he  meant  to  be  President,  and  perform  his 
duty  according  to  his  best  understanding,  if  he  had 
to  die  for  it.  ...  It  was  a  mistake  to  suppose, 
that  Generals  Fremont,  Butler,  and  Sigel  were 
"  systematically  kept  out  of  command  :  "  on  the  con 
trary,  he  fully  appreciated  their  merits.  By  their 
own  aclions  they  had  placed  themselves  in  the  posi- 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  4! 

tions  they  occupied.  He  was  not  only  willing,  but 
anxious,  to  place  them  again  in  command,  as  soon 
as  he  could  find  spheres  of  action  for  them  without 
doing  injustice  to  others ;  but  that,  at  present,  he 
"had  more  pegs  than  holes  to  put  them  in."  — 
1863.  ^ 

REMOVAL    OF    GENERAL    CURTIS. 

"X/'OUR  despatch  of  to-day  is  just  received.  It 
is  very  painful  to  me  that  you,  in  Missouri, 
cannot,  or  will  not,  settle  your  factional  quarrel 
among  yourselves.  I  have  been  tormented  with  it 
beyond  endurance,  for  months,  by  both  sides. 
Neither  side  pays  the  least  respect  to  my  appeals 
to  your  reason.  I  am  now  compelled  to  take  hold 
of  the  case.  —  March,  1863. 


THREE    WATS   TO  MAKE  PEACE. 

'THO  those  who  are  dissatisfied  with  me,  I  would 
say,  You  desired  peace,  and  you  blame  me 
that  we  do  not  have  it.  But  how  can  we  attain  it? 
There  are  but  three  conceivable  ways :  First,  to 
suppress  the  rebellion  by  force  of  arms.  This  I 
am  trying  to  do.  Are  you  for  it?  If  you  are,  so  far 


42  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

we  are  agreed.  If  you  are  not  for  it,  a  second  way 
is  to  give  up  the  Union.  I  am  against  this.  Are 
you  for  it  ?  If  you  are,  you  should  say  so  plainly. 
If  you  are  not  for  force,  nor  yet  for  dissolution, 
there  only  remains  some  imaginable  compromise. — 
August,  1863. 


TO    GENERAL    SCHOFIELD. 

ET  your  military  measures  be  strong  enough  to 
~L-'  repel  the  invaders  and  keep  the  peace,  and 
not  so  strong  as  to  unnecessarily  harass  and  perse 
cute  the  people.  It  is  a  difficult  role  ;  and  so  much 
greater  will  be  the  honor,  if  you  perform  it  well. 
If  both  factions,  or  neither,  shall  abuse  you,  you 
will  probably  be  about  right.  Beware  of  being 
assailed  by  one,  and  praised  by  the  other.  —  May, 

1863. 

Allow  no  part  of  the  military  under  your  com 
mand  to  be  engaged  in  either  returning  fugitive 
slaves,  or  in  forcing  or  enticing  slaves  from  their 
homes ;  and,  so  far  as  is  practicable,  enforce  the 
same  forbearance  upon  the  people. 

Allow  no  one  to  enlist  colored  troops,  except 
upon  orders  from  you,  or  from  here  through  you. 

Allow  no  one  to  assume  the  functions  of  confis- 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  43 

eating   property,  under   the   law  of   Congress,    or 
otherwise,  except  upon  orders  from  here. 

At  elections,  see  that  those,  and  only  those,  are 
allowed  to  vote,  who  are  entitled  to  do  so  by  the 
laws  of  Missouri. —  O&obcr,  1863. 


DR.    McPIIEETERS. 

T  HAVE  never  interfered,  nor  thought  of  inter- 
fering,  as  to  who  shall  or  shall  not  preach  in 
any  church  ;  nor  have  I  knowingly  or  believingly 
tolerated  any  one  else  to  interfere  by  my  authority. 
...  If,  after  all,  what  is  now  sought  is  to  have  me 
put  Dr.  Me.  back  over  the  heads  of  a  majority  of 
his  own  congregation,  that  too  will  be  declined.  I 
will  not  have  control  of  any  church  or  any  side.  — 
December,  1863. 

COMPROMISE. 

T  DO  not  believe  that  any  compromise,  embracing 
the  maintenance  of  the  Union,  is  now  possible. 
All  that  I  learn  tends  to  a  directly  opposite  belief. 
The  strength  of  the  rebellion  is  its  military,  —  its 
army.  In  any  compromise,  we  should  waste  time, 
which  the  enemy  would  improve  to  our  disadvan 
tage  ;  and  that  would  be  all.  — August,  1863. 


44 


FOURTH  OF  JULT,  1863. 

•pELLOW-CITIZENS,  —  I  am  very  glad  in- 
deed  to  see  you  to-night,  and  yet  I  will  not 
say  I  thank  you  for  this  call ;  but  I  do  most  sincerely 
thank  Almighty  God  for  the  occasion  on  which  you 
have  called.  How  long  ago  is  it?  Eighty-odd  years 
since,  on  the  Fourth  of  July,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  a  nation  by  its  representatives 
assembled,  and  declared  as  a  self-evident  truth 
"  that  all  men  are  created  equal."  That  was  the 
birthday  of  the  United  States  of  America.  Since 
then,  the  Fourth  of  July  has  had  several  very  pecu 
liar  recognitions.  The  two  men  most  distinguished 
in  the  framing  and  support  of  the  Declaration  were 
Thomas  Jefferson  and  John  Adams,  —  the  one  hav 
ing  penned  it,  and  the  other  sustained  it  most  forci 
bly  in  debate,  —  the  only  two  of  the  fifty-five  who 
signed  it,  and  were  elected  Presidents  of  the  United 
States.  Precisely  fifty  years  after  they  put  their 
hands  to  the  paper,  it  pleased  Almighty  God  to 
tal:e  both  from  this  stage  of  action.  This  was  in 
deed  an  extraordinary  and  remarkable  event  in  our 
history. 

Another   President,  five   years  later,  was.  called 
from  this  stage  of  existence,  on  the  same  day  and 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  45 

month  of  the  year ;  and  now,  on  this  last  Fourth 
of  July,  just  passed,  when  we  have  a  gigantic  rebel 
lion,  at  the  bottom  of  which  is  an  effort  to  over 
throw  the  principle  that  all  men  were  created  equal, 
we  have  the  surrender  of  a  most  powerful  position 
and  army  on  that  very  day.  And  not  only  so,  but 
in  a  succession  of  battles  in  Pennsylvania,  near  to 
us,  through  three  days,  so  rapidly  fought  that  they 
might  be  called  one  great  battle,  on  the  first,  second, 
and  third  of  the  month  of  July  ;  and,  on  the  fourth, 
the  cohorts  of  those  who  opposed  the  Declaration 
that  "  all  men  are  created  equal,"  turned  tail  and 
ran.  —  July,  1863. 


THE  WAR  PO  WER  THE  ONL  T  RECON- 
S  TR  UC  TIONIS  T. 

TN  the  midst  of  other  cases,  however  important, 
we  must  not  lose  sight  of  the  fact,  that  the  war 
power  is  still  our  main  reliance.  To  that  power 
alone  we  can  look,  yet  for  a  time,  to  give  confidence 
to  the  people,  in  the  contested  regions,  that  the  in 
surgent  power  will  not  again  overrun  them.  Until 
that  confidence  shall  be  established,  little  can  be 
done  anywhere  for  what  is  called  reconstrziftion. 


46  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

Hence  our  chiefest  care  must  still  be  directed  to  the 
army  and  navy,  who  have,  thus  far,  borne  their 
harder  part  so  nobly  and  well.  And  it  may  be 
esteemed  fortunate,  that,  in  giving  the  greatest  effi 
ciency  to  these  indispensable  arms,  we  do  also 
honorably  recognize  the  gallant  men,  from  com 
mander  to  sentinel,  who  compose  them,  and  to 
whom,  more  than  to  others,  the  world  must  stand 
indebted  for  the  home  of  freedom,  disenthralled, 
regenerated,  enlarged,  and  perpetuated.  —  Decem 
ber,  1863. 


w 


RIGHT. 

HEN  the  time  comes,  I  shall  take  the  ground 
that  I  think  is  right,  —  right  for  the  North, 
for  the  South,  for  the  East,  for  the  West,  — for  the 
whole  country.  And,  in  doing  so,  I  hope  to  feel  no 
necessity  pressing  upon  me  to  say  any  thing  in  con 
flict  with  the  Constitution ;  in  conflict  with  the 
Union  of  these  States  ;  in  conflict  with  the  perpetu 
ation  of  the  liberties  of  this  people,  —  or  any  thing 
in  conflict  with  any  thing  whatever  that  I  have  ever 
given  you  reason  to  expect  from  me.  And  now, 
my  friends,  have  I  said  enough?  (Cries  of  "No, 
no,"  and  "  Three  cheers  for  Lincoln.")  Now,  my 


POLITICAL   SYSTEMS.  47 

friends,  there  appears  to  be  a  difference  of  opinion 
between  you  and  me  ;  and  I  really  feel  called  upon 
to  decide  the  question  myself.  —  February,  1863. 


THE  DRAFT. 

~\\  7E  are  contending  with  an  enemy,  who,  as  I 
understand,  drives  every  able-bodied  man  he 
can  reach  into  his  ranks,  very  much  as  a  butcher 
drives  bullocks  into  a  slaughter-pen.  No  time  is 
wasted,  no  argument  is  used.  ...  I  do  not  object  to 
abide  a  decision  of  the  United-States  Supreme 
Court,  or  of  the  judges  thereof,  on  the  constitution 
ality  of  the  draft-law.  In  fact,  I  should  be  willing 
to  facilitate  the  obtaining  of  it.  But  I  cannot  con 
sent  to  lose  the  time  while  it  is  being  obtained.  — 
August,  1863. 


RE-NOMINA  TION. 
Don't  Swap  Horses  while  Crossing  the  River. 

T  AM  not  insensible  at  all  to  the  personal  compli 
ment  there  is  in  this ;    and  yet  I  do  not  allow 

myself  to  believe,  that  any  but  a  small  portion  of  it 

is  to  be  appropriated  as  a  personal  compliment.  .  .  . 

The  part  I  am  entitled  to  appropriate  as  a  compli- 


48  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

ment  is  only  that  part  which  I  may  lay  hold  of  as 
being  the  opinion  of  the  Convention  and  the 
League,  that  I  am  not  entirely  unworthy  to  be  in 
trusted  with  the  place  which  I  have  occupied  for 
the  last  three  years.  But  I  do  not  allow  myself  to 
suppose,  that  either  the  Convention  or  the  League 
have  concluded  to  decide  that  I  am  either  the  great 
est  or  best  man  in  America ;  but  rather  they  have 
concluded,  that  it  is  not  best  to  swap  horses  while 
crossing  the  river ;  and  have  further  concluded, 
that  I  am  not  so  poor  a  horse,  that  they  might 
not  make  a  botch  of  it  in  trying  to  swap.  —  June, 
1864. 


TO    WHOM  IT  MAT  CONCERN. 

A  NY  proposition  which  embraces  the  restora- 
tion  of  peace,  the  integrity  of  the  whole 
Union,  and  the  abandonment  of  Slavery,  and  which 
comes  by  and  with  an  authority  that  can  control  the 
armies  now  at  war  against  the  United  States,  will 
be  received  and  considered  by  the  Executive  Gov 
ernment  of  the  United  States,  and  will  be  met  by 
liberal  terms  on  other  substantial  and  collateral 
points  ;  and  the  bearer  or  bearers  thereof  shall  have 
safe  conduct  both  ways. —  July,  1864. 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  49 


SUCCESS   OF  GRANT  BETTER    THAN   BAL 
TIMORE   CONVENTIONS. 


/"T^HE  hardest  of  all  speeches  I  have  to  answer 
is  a  serenade.  I  never  know  what  to  say  on 
such  occasions.  I  suppose  you  have  done  me  this 
kindness  in  connection  with  the  action  of  the  Balti 
more  Convention,  which  has  recently  taken  place, 
and  with  which,  of  course,  I  am  very  well  satisfied. 
What  we  want,  still  more  than  Baltimore  Conven 
tions  or  Presidential  elections,  is  success  under 
General  Grant.  I  propose  that  you  constantly  bear 
in  mind,  that  the  support  you  owe  to  the  brave  offi 
cers  and  soldiers  in  the  field  is  of  the  very  first  im 
portance  ;  and  we  should,  therefore,  bend  all  our 
energies  to  that  point.  Now,  without  detaining 
you  any  longer,  I  propose  that  you  help  me  to  close 
up  what  I  am  now  saying  with  three  rousing 
cheers  for  General  Grant  and  the  officers  and  sol 
diers  under  his  command.  —  June,  1864. 


WHICH  LINE  HE  FIGHTS  ON. 

TT  is  a  pertinent  question,  often  asked  in  the  mind 
A    privately,  and  from  one  to  the  other,  When  is 
the  war  to  end?     Surely  I  feel  as  deep  an  interest 
3  D 


50  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

in  this  question  as  any  other  can  ;  but  I  do  not  wish 
to  name  a  day,  a  month,  or  a  year,  when  it  is  to 
end.  .  .  .  We  accepted  this  war  for  an  object,  —  a 
worthy  object ;  and  the  war  will  end  when  that 
object  is  attained.  Under  God,  I  hope  it  never  will 
end  until  that  time.  Speaking  of  the  present  cam 
paign,  General  Grant  is  reported  to  have  said,  "  I 
am  going  through  on  this  line,  if  it  takes  all  sum 
mer."  This  war  has  taken  three  years  ;  it  was  be 
gun,  or  accepted,  upon  the  line  of  restoring  the 
national  authority  over  the  whole  national  domain  ; 
and  for  the  American  people,  as  far  as  my  knowl 
edge  enables  me  to  speak,  I  say,  we  are  going 
through  on  this  line,  if  it  takes  three  years  more.  — 
June,  1864. 


THE   CONSTITUTION. 

TT  7AS  it  possible  to  lose  the  nation,  and  yet  pre- 
*  serve  the  Constitution  ?  By  general  law, 
life  and  limb  must  be  protected ;  yet  often  a  limb 
must  be  amputated  to  save  a  life:  but  a  life  is 
never  wisely  given  to  save  a  limb.  I  felt  that  mea 
sures,  otherwise  unconstitutional,  might  become 
lawful  by  becoming  indispensable  to  the  preserva 
tion  of  the  nation.  Right  or  wrong,  I  assumed  this 


POLITICAL    SYSTEMS.  51 

ground,  and  now  avow  it.  I  could  not  feel,  that,  to 
the  best  of  my  ability,  I  had  ever  tried  to  preserve 
the  Constitution,  if,  to  save  slavery,  or  any  minor 
matter,  I  should  permit  the  wreck  of  Government, 
Country,  and  Constitution,  altogether.  —  April, 
1864. 

TAKE    YOUR    TIME. 

ENTLEMEN,  —  The  general  aspeft  of  your 
movement  I  cordially  approve.  In  regard  to 
particulars,  I  must  ask  time  to  deliberate,  as  the 
work  of  amending  the  Constitution  should  not  be 
clone  hastily.  I  will  carefully  examine  your  paper, 
in  order  more  fully  to  comprehend  its  contents  than 
is  possible  from  merely  hearing  it  read,  and  will 
take  such  a6tion  upon  it  as  my  responsibility  to  our 
Maker  and  our  country  demands. — January,  1864. 


I 


STRENGTH  OF  REPUBLICS. 

S  there  in  all  republics  this  inherent  and  fatal 
weakness  ?  Must  a  Government  of  necessity  be 
too  strong  for  the  liberties  of  its  own  people,  or 
too  weak  to  maintain  its  own  existence  ? 

1861. 

I 


52  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

OFFICIAL    OATIL 

A  RE  all  the  laws  but  one  to  go  unexecuted,  and 
the  Government  itself  go  to  pieces,  but  that 
one  be  violated?  Even  in  such  a  case,  would  not 
the  official  oath  be  broken,  if  the  Government 
should  be  overthrown,  when  it  was  believed  that 
disregarding  that  single  law  would  tend  to  preserve 
it?  —  July,  1861. 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY. 


SLAVERY    AND    ANTISLAVERY. 

KANSAS    AND    NEBRASKA. DRED-SCOTT    DECISION. 

THE    REBELLION. 


THE    NEGRO. 

r  I  "'HERE  will  be  some  black  men  who  can  re- 
member,  that,  with  silent  tongue  and  clenched 
teeth  and  steady  eye  and  well-poised  bayonet,  they 
have  helped  mankind  on  to  this  great  consumma 
tion  ;  while,  I  fear,  there  will  be  some  white  ones 
unable  to  forget,  that,  with  malignant  heart  and 
deceitful  speech,  they  have  striven  to  hinder  it.  — 
'August,  1863. 


NEBRASKA  BILL. 

r  I  ""HE  Nebraska  bill  finds  no  model  in  any  law, 
from  Adam  till  to-day.  As  Phillips  says  of 
Napoleon,  the  Nebraska  act  is  grand,  gloomy,  and 
peculiar ;  wrapped  in  the  solitude  of  its  own  origi 
nality,  without  a  model,  and  without  a  shadow 
upon  the  earth. —  Oftober,  1854. 

[55] 


56  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

SLA  VER  T. 

*  I  ^HE  shepherd  drives  the  wolf  from  the  sheep's 
throat,  for  which  the  sheep  thanks  the  shep 
herd  as  a  liberator;  while  the  wolf  denounces  him, 
for  the  same  act,  as  the  destroyer  of  liberty,  espe 
cially  as  the  sheep  was  a  black  one.  Plainly,  the 
sheep  and  the  wolf  are  not  agreed  upon  the  word 
"liberty;"  and  precisely  the  same  difference  pre 
vails  to-day  among  us  human  creatures,  even  in  the 
North,  and  all  professing  to  love  liberty.  —  April, 
1864. 

WHAT  IS  AND    WHAT  MAY  BE. 

\  S  this  subject  is  no  other  than  part  and  parcel 
•*•  ^  of  the  larger  question  of  domestic  slavery,  I 
wish  to  make  and  to  keep  the  distinction  between 
the  existing  institution,  and  the  extension  of  it,  so 
broad  and  so  clear  that  no  honest  man  can  misun 
derstand  me,  and  no  dishonest  one  successfully  mis 
represent  me.  ...  I  have  no  prejudice  against  the 
Southern  people.  They  are  just  what  we  would 
be  in  their  situation.  If  slavery  did  not  now  exist 
among  them,  they  would  not  introduce  it.  If  it  did 
now  exist  among  us,  we  should  not  instantly  give  it 


SLAVERY    AND    ANTISLAVERY.  57 

r.p.  This  I  believe  of  the  masses,  North  and  South. 
Doubtless  there  are  individuals,  on  both  sides,  who 
would  not  hold  slaves  under  any  circumstances;  and 
others  who  would  gladly  introduce  slavery  anew,  if 
it  were  out  of  existence.  We  know  that  some 
Southern  men  do  free  their  slaves,  go  North,  and 
become  tip-top  abolitionists ;  while  some  Northern 
men  go  South,  and  become  most  cruel  slave-mas 
ters. —  Ottobcr,  1854. 


POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY 

TF  any  man  can  show  how  the  people  of  Kansas 
have  a  better  right  to  slaves  because  they  want 
them,  than  the  people  of  Georgia  have  to  buy  them 
in  Africa,  I  want  him  to  do  it.  I  think  it  cannot  be 
done.  If  it  is  "  Popular  Sovereignty"  for  the  peo 
ple  to  have  slaves  because  they  want  them,  it  is 
"  Popular  Sovereignty "  for  them  to  buy  them  in 
Africa  because  they  desire  to  do  so.  —  September, 
1859.  t 

FREE-STATE  DEMOCRAT. 

\  LLOW   me  to  barely  whisper  my  suspicion, 
that  there  were  no  such  things  in  Kansas  as 
u  Free  -  State    Democrats  ;  "    that   they   were    alto- 
3* 


58  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

gether  mythical,  good  only  to  figure  in  newspapers 
and  speeches  in  the  Free  States.  If  there  should 
prove  to  be  one  real,  living  Free-State  Democrat  in 
Kansas,  I  suggest  that  it  might  be  well  to  catch 
him,  and  stuff'  and  preserve  his  skin,  as  an  interest 
ing  specimen  of  that  soon-to-be-extincl:  variety  of 
the  genus  Democrat. —  Jime,  1857. 


HUNTER'S   PR O CLAMA  TION. 

T  T  7HETHER  it  be  competent  for  me,  as  Com- 
mander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  to 
declare  the  slaves  of  any  State  or  States  free ;  and 
whether,  at  any  time  or  in  any  case,  it  shall  have 
become  a  necessity  indispensable  to  the  mainten 
ance  of  the  government  to  exercise  such  supposed 
power,  —  are  questions  which,  under  my  responsi 
bility,  I  reserve  to  myself,  and  which  I  cannot  feel 
justified  in  leaving  to  the  decision  of  commanders 
in  the  field. —  June,  1862. 


EQUAL  RIGHTS. 

T  AGREE  with  Judge  Douglas,  the  negro  is  not 

my  equal    in   many   respects,  certainly  not  in 

color,  perhaps  not  in  moral  or  intellectual  endow- 


SLAVERY   AND    AXTISLAVERY.  59 

ments.  But  in  the  right  to  eat  the  bread,  without 
leave  of  anybody  else,  which  his  own  hand  earns, 
he  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal  of  Judge  Douglas, 
and  the  equal  of  every  living  man.  Any  thing 
that  argues  me  into  his  idea  of  perfect  social  and 
political  equality  with  the  negro,  is  but  a  specious 
and  fantastic  arrangement  of  words,  by  which  a  man 
can  prove  a  horse-chestnut  to  be  a  chestmit-horse. 
—  September,  1859. 


SACRED  RIGHT  OF  SL AVERT. 

HT^HE  plain,  unmistakable  spirit  of  the  fathers 
of  the  Republic  towards  slavery  was  hostility 
to  the  PRINCIPLE,  and  toleration  ONLY  BY  NECES 
SITY. 

But  now  it  is  to  be  transformed  into  a  "  SACRJED 
RIGHT."  Nebraska  brings  it  forth,  places  it  on  the 
high  road  to  extension  and  perpetuity  ;  and,  with  a 
pat  on  its  back,  says  to  it,  "  Go,  and  God  speed 
you."  Henceforth  it  is  to  be  the  chief  jewel  of  the 
nation,  —  the  very  figure-head  of  the  ship  of  State. 
Little  by  little,  but  steadily  as  man's  march  to  the 
grave,  we  have  been  giving  up  the  OLD  for  the  NEW 
faith.  Near  eighty  years  ago  we  began  by  declar 
ing  that  "  all  men  are  created  equal ; "  but  now,  from 


60  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

that  beginning,  we  have  run  down  to  the  other 
declaration,  that  for  SOME  men  to  enslave  OTHERS 
is  a  "  sacred  right  of  self-government."  These 
principles  cannot  stand  together.  They  are  as 
opposite  as  GOD  and  MAMMON  ;  and  whoever  holds 
to  the  one,  must  despise  the  other.  —  Ottober,  1854. 


THE   TREE   OF  GOOD  AND  EVIL. 

TN  the  course  of  my  main  argument,  Judge  Doug- 
las  interrupted  me  to  say,  that  the  principle  of 
the  Nebraska  bill  was  very  old ;  that  it  originated 
when  God  made  man,  and  placed  good  and  evil 
before  him,  allowing  him  to  choose  for  himself, 
being  responsible  for  the  choice  he  should  make. 
At  the  time,  I  thought  this  was  merely  playful ; 
and  I  answered  it  accordingly.  But,  in  his  reply  to 
me,  he  renewed  it  as  a  serious  argument.  In  seri 
ousness,  then,  the  facts  of  this  proposition  are  not 
true,  as  stated.  God  did  not  place  good  and  evil 
before  man,  telling  him  to  make  his  choice.  On 
the  contrary,  he  did  tell  him  there  was  one  tree 
of  the  fruit  of  which  he  should  not  eat,  upon  pain 
of  certain  death.  I  should  scarcely  wish  so  strong 
a  prohibition  against  shivery  in  Nebraska. 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  6 1 

But  this  argument  strikes  me  as  not  a  little 
remarkable  in  another  particular,  —  in  its  strong 
resemblance  to  the  old  argument  for  the  "  divine 
right  of  kings."  By  the  latter,  the  king  is  to  do 
just  as  he  pleases  with  his  white  subjects,  being 
responsible  to  God  alone  ;  by  the  former,  the  white 
man  is  to  do  just  as  he  pleases  with  his  black 
slaves,  being  responsible  to  God  alone.  The  two 
things  are  precisely  alike  ;  and  it  is  but  natural  that 
they  should  find  similar  arguments  to  sustain  them. 
—  O&ober,  1854. 


SLA  VE-DEALER. 

"\/'OU  have  among  you  a  sneaking  individual 
of  the  class  of  native  tyrants  known  as  the 
SLAVE-DEALER.  He  watches  your  necessities,  and 
crawls  up  to  buy  your  slave  at  a  speculating  price. 
If  you  cannot  help  it,  you  sell  to  him ;  but,  if  you 
can  help  it,  you  drive  him  from  your  door.  You 
despise  him  utterly.  You  do  not  recognize  him  as 
a  friend,  or  even  as  an  honest  man.  Your  children 
must  not  play  with  his ;  they  may  rollic  freely 
with  the  little  negroes,  but  not  with  the  "slave- 
dealer's  "  children.  If  you  are  obliged  to  deal  with 
him,  you  try  to  get  through  the  job  without  so 


62  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

much  as  touching  him.  It  is  common  with  you  to 
join  hands  with  the  men  you  meet ;  but  with  the 
"slave-dealer"  you  avoid  the  ceremony,  —  instinct 
ively  shrink  from  the  snaky  contact.  If  he  grows 
rich,  and  retires  from  business,  you  still  remember 
him,  and  still  keep  up  the  bar  of  non-intercourse 
upon  him  and  his  family.  Now,  why  is  this  ?  You 
do  not  so  treat  the  man  who  deals  in  corn,  cattle, 
or  tobacco. —  Odobcr,  1854. 


HOGS  AND  NEGROES. 

I^QUAL  justice  to  the  South,  it  is  said,  requires 
^-^  us  to  consent  to  the  extension  of  slavery  to 
new  countries.  That  is  to  say,  inasmuch  as  you  do 
not  object  to  my  taking  my  hog  to  Nebraska,  there 
fore  I  must  not  object  to  your  taking  your  slave. 
Now,  I  admit  this  is  perfectly  logical,  if  there  is  no 
difference  between  hogs  and  negroes.  But,  while 
you  thus  require  me  to  deny  the  humanity  of  the 
negro,  I  wish  to  ask  whether  you  of  the  South, 
yourselves,  have  ever  been  willing  to  do  as  much? 
...  In  1820  you  joined  the  North,  almost  unani 
mously,  in  declaring  the  African  slave-trade  piracy, 
and  in  annexing  to  it  the  punishment  of  death. 
Why  did  you  do  this?  If  you  did  not  feel  that  it 


SLAVERY   AND   ANTISLAVERY.  63 

was  wrong,  why  did  you  join  in  providing  that 
men  should  be  hung  for  it?  The  practice  was  no 
more  than  bringing  wild  negroes  from  Africa  to 
sell  to  such  as  would  buy  them.  But  you  never 
thought  of  hanging  men  for  catching  and  selling 
wild  horses,  wild  buffaloes,  or  wild  bears.  —  O&o- 
bcr,  1854. 


SELFISHNESS  AND   SL AVERT. 

A  RGUE  as  you  will,  and  as  long  as  you  will, 
•^•*-  this  is  the  naked  FRONT  and  ASPECT  of  the 
measure ;  and  in  this  aspect  it  could  not  but  pro 
duce  agitation.  Slavery  is  founded  in  the  selfish 
ness  of  man's  nature ;  opposition  to  it,  in  his  love 
of  justice.  These  principles  are  an  eternal  antagon 
ism  ;  and  when  brought  into  collision,  so  fiercely  as 
slavery  extension  brings  them,  shocks,  throes,  and 
convulsions  must  ceaselessly  follow.  Repeal  the 
Missouri  Compromise  ;  repeal  all  compromise  ;  re 
peal  the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  repeal  all 
past  history, — you  still  cannot  repeal  human  nature. 
It  still  will  be  the  abundance  of  man's  heart,  that 
slavery  extension  is  wrong ;  and,  out  of  the  abun 
dance  of  his  heart,  his  mouth  will  continue  to 
speak.  —  Ottober,  1854. 


64  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

LIBERTY  OF  ALL  MEN. 

T^ELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,  Americans,  South 
as  well  as  North,  shall  we  make  no  effort  to 
arrest  this  [the  extension  of  slavery]  ?  Already  the 
liberal  party  throughout  the  world  express  the  ap 
prehension,  "that  the  one  retrograde  institution  in 
America  is  undermining  the  principles  of  progress, 
and  fatally  violating  the  noblest  political  system  the 
world  ever  saw."  This  is  not  the  taunt  of  enemies, 
but  the  warning  of  friends.  Is  it  quite  safe  to  dis 
regard  it,  —  to  despise  it?  Is  there  no  danger  to 
liberty  itself  in  discarding  the  earliest  practice  and 
first  precept  of  our  ancient  faith?  In  our  greedy 
chase  to  make  profit  of  the  negro,  let  us  beware  lest 
"we  cancel  and  tear  to  pieces"  even  the  white 
man's  charter  of  freedom. —  Ottobcr,  1854. 


BOWIE-KNIVES  AND  BALLOT-BOXES. 


Yankees  in  the  East  are  sending  emi- 
grants  to  Nebraska,  to  exclude  slavery  from  it  ; 
and,  so  far  as  I  can  judge,  they  expect  the  question 
to  be  decided  by  'voting  in  some  way  or  other.  But 
the  Missourians  are  awake  too.  They  are  within  a 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  65 

stone's  throw  of  the  contested  ground.  They  hold 
meetings  and  pass  resolutions,  in  which  not  the 
slightest  allusion  to  voting  is  made.  They  resolve 
that  slavery  already  exists  in  the  territory ;  that 
more  shall  go  there ;  that  they,  remaining  in  Mis 
souri,  will  protect  it ;  and  that  Abolitionists  shall 
be  hung  or  driven  away.  Through  all  this,  bowie- 
knives  and  six-shooters  are  seen  plainly  enough ; 
but  never  a  glimpse  of  the  ballot-box. —  O&ober, 
1854. 


MISSOURI  COMPROMISE. 

OOME  men,  mostly  Whigs,  who  condemn  the  re- 
^  peal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  nevertheless 
hesitate  to  go  for  its  restoration,  lest  they  be  thrown 
in  company  with  the  Abolitionists.  Will  they  allow 
me  as  an  old  Whig  to  tell  them,  good-humoredly, 
that  I  think  this  is  very  silly?  Stand  with  anybody 
that  stands  RIGHT.  Stand  with  him  while  he  is 
right,  and  PART  with  him  when  he  goes  WRONG^ 
Stand  WITH  the  Abolitionists  in  restoring  the  Mis 
souri  Compromise,  and  stand  AGAINST  him  when 
he  attempts  to  repeal  the  fugitive-slave  law.  In  the 
latter  case,  you  stand  with  the  Southern  disunionist. 
What  of  that?  You  are  still  RIGHT.  In  both  cases 


66  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

you  are  RIGHT.  In  both  cases  you  oppose  the  dan 
gerous  extremes.  In  both  you  stand  on  middle 
ground,  and  hold  the  ship  level  and  steady.  In 
both  you  are  national,  and  nothing  less  than  national. 
This  is  the  good  old  WHIG  ground.  To  desert  such 
ground  because  of  ANY  company  is  to  be  less  than 
a  WHIG,  —  less  than  a  MAN,  —  less  than  an  AMERI 
CAN. —  Oftober,  1854. 


DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE. 

"\T  THEN  Mr.  Pettit,  in  connection  with  his  sup 
port  of  the  Nebraska  bill,  called  the  Declar 
ation  of  Independence  "  a  self-evident  lie,"  he  only 
did  what  consistency  and  candor  require  all  other 
Nebraska  men  to  do.  Of  the  forty-odd  Nebraska 
senators  wlio  sat  present  and  heard  him,  no  one 
rebuked  him.  ...  If  this  had  been  said  among 
Marion's  men,  Southerners  though  they  were,  what 
would  have  become  of  the  man  who  said  it?  If 
this  had  been  said  to  the  men  who  captured  Andre", 
the  man  who  said  it  would  probably  have  been 
hung  sooner  than  Andre  was.  If  it  had  been  said 
in  old  Independence  Hall,  seventy-eight  years  ago, 
the  very  doorkeeper  would  have  throttled  the  man, 
and  thrust  him  into  the  street. —  O&ober,  1854. 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  67 


RIGHT  AND  NECESSITY. 

republican  robe  is  soiled,  —  trailed  in  the 
dust.  Let  us  re-purify  it.  Let  us  turn  and 
wash  it  white,  in  the  spirit,  if  not  the  blood,  of  the 
Revolution.  Let  us  turn  slavery  from  its  claims  of 
"moral  right"  back  upon  its  existing  legal  rights 
and  its  arguments  of  "  necessity."  Let  us  return 
it  to  the  position  our  fathers  gave  it,  and  there  let  it 
rest  in  peace.  Let  us  re-adopt  the  Declaration  of 
Independence,  and  with  it  the  practices  and  policy 
which  harmonize  with  it.  Let  North  and  South,  — 
let  all  Americans,  —  Jet  all  lovers  of  liberty  every 
where,  — join  in  the  great  and  good  work.  If  we 
do  this,  we  shall  not  only  have  saved  the  Union, 
but  we  shall  have  so  saved  it  as  to  make  and  to  keep 
it  for  ever  'worthy  of  the  saving.  We  shall  have  so 
saved  it  that  the  succeeding  millions  of  free,  happy 
people,  the  world  over,  shall  rise  up,  and  call  us 
blessed  to  the  latest  generations. —  O8ober,  1854. 


POOR    WHITES. 


"\  T  7HETHER  slavery  shall  go  into  Nebraska  or 

other   new  Territories,  is  not  a  matter  of 

exclusive  concern  to  the  people  who  may  go  there. 


68  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

The  whole  nation  is  interested  that  the  best  use  shall 
be  made  of  these  Territories.  We  want  them  for 
homes  of  free  white  people.  This  they  cannot  be, 
if  slavery  shall  be  planted  within  them.  Slave 
States  are  places  for  poor  white  people  to  move 
FROM,  not  to  remove  TO.  New  Free  States  are 
the  places  for  poor  people  to  go  to,  and  better  their 
condition.  For  this  use  the  nation  needs  these 
Territories. 

.  .  .  There  are  constitutional  relations  between  the 
Slave  and  the  Free  States  which  are  degrading  to 
the  latter.  We  are  under  legal  obligations  to  catch 
and  return  their  runaway  slaves  to  them,  —  a  sort 
of  dirty,  disagreeable  job,  which,  I  believe,  as  a 
general  rule,  the  slaveholders  will  not  perform  for 
one  another.  —  Odober,  1854. 


THREE-FIFTHS  VOTE. 

A  FTER  showing  that  each  white  man  in  South 
Carolina  is  more  than  the  double  of  any  man 
in  Maine,  —  "  Yet,"  he  says  .  .  .  "  I  do  not  mention 
this  to  complain  of  it.  .  .  It  is  in  the  Constitution.  .  . 
I  stand  to  it  fairly,  fully,  and  firmly.  But,  when  I 
am  told  I  must  leave  it  altogether  to  other  people  to 
say  whether  new  partners  are  to  be  bred  up  and 


SLAVERY    AND    ANTISLAVERY.  69 

brought  into  the  firm  on  the  same  degrading  terms 
against  me,  I  respectfully  demur.  I  insist  that, 
whether  I  shall  be  a  whole  man  or  only  the  half  of 
one,  in  comparison  with  others,  is  a  question  in 
which  I  am  somewhat  concerned,  and  one  which 
no  other  man  can  have  a  *  sacred  right '  of  deciding 
for  me.  If  I  am  wrong  in  this,  —  if  it  really  be 
a  '  sacred  right  of  self-government '  in  the  man  who 
shall  go  to  Nebraska  to  decide  whether  he  will  be 
the  EQUAL  of  me  or  the  DOUBLE  of  me,  then,  after 
he  shall  have  exercised  that  right,  and  thereby  shall 
have  reduced  me  to  a  still  smaller  fraction  of  a 
man  than  I  already  am,  I  should  like  for  some  gen 
tleman,  deeply  skilled  in  4  sacred  rights,'  to  provide 
himself  with  a  microscope,  and  peep  about  and  find 
out,  if  he  can,  wrhat  has  become  of  my  '  sacred 
rights ' !  They  will  surely  be  too  small  for  detec 
tion  with  the  naked  eye." —  Odober,  1854. 


NEW  LIGHTS. 

,  with  the  author  of  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence,  did  the  policy  of  prohibiting  slavery 
in  the  Territories  originate.  .  .  .  But  now  new  light 
breaks  upon  us.  Now  Congress  declares  this  ought 
never  to  have  been,  and  the  like  of  it  must  never  be 


70  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

again.  "The  sacred  right  of  self-government"  is 
grossly  violated  by  it.  We  even  find  some  men, 
who  drew  their  first  breath  and  every  other  breath 
of  their  lives  under  this  very  restriction,  now  live 
in  dread  of  absolute  suffocation,  if  they  should  be 
restricted  in  the  "  sacred  right"  of  taking  slaves  to 
Nebraska.  That  perfect  liberty  they  sigh  for  —  the 
liberty  of  making  slaves  of  other  people  — Jefferson 
never  thought  of,  —  they  never  thought  of  them 
selves  a  year  ago.  How  fortunate  for  them  they 
did  not  sooner  become  sensible  of  their  great  mis 
ery  !  —  Odober,  1854. 


SLAVERY  IN  THE   TERRITORIES. 

TTiNALLY,  I  insist,  that,  if  there  is  ANY  THING 
-*-  which  it  is  the  duty  of  the  WHOLE  PEOPLE  to 
never  intrust  to  any  hands  but  their  own,  that  thing 
is  the  preservation  and  perpetuity  of  their  own  lib 
erties  and  institutions.  And,  if  they  shall  think, 
as  I  do,  that  the  extension  of  slavery  endangers 
them  more  than  any  or  all  other  causes,  how  re 
creant  to  themselves  if  they  submit  the  question, 
and  with  it  the  fate  of  their  country,  to  a  mere 
handful  of  men,  bent  only  on  temporary  self- 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  71 

interest !  If  this  question  of  slavery  extension 
were  an  insignificant  one,  —  one  having  no  power 
to  do  harm,  —  it  might  be  shuffled  aside  in  this 
way ;  but  being,  as  it  is,  the  great  Behemoth  of 
danger,  shall  the  strong  grip  of  the  nation  be 
loosened  upon  him,  to  intrust  him  to  the  hands 
of  such  feeble  keepers? 

I  have  done  with  this  mighty  argument  of  "  self- 
government." 

Go,  SACRED  THING  !  Go  in  peace.  —  Ottober, 
1854. 


EXTENSION  OF  SL AVERT. 

T)  UT  Nebraska  is  urged  as  a  great  Union-saving 
^~^  measure.  Well,  I  too  go  for  saving  the 
Union.  Much  as  I  hate  slavery,  I  would  consent 
to  the  extension  of  it,  rather  than  see  the  Union 
dissolved ;  just  as  I  would  consent  to  any  great 
evil  to  avoid  a  greater  one.  But,  when  I  go  to 
Union-saving,  I  must  believe,  at  least,  that  the 
means  I  employ  have  some  adaptation  to  the  end. 
To  my  mind,  Nebraska  has  no  such  adaptation. 

"  It  hath  no  relish  of  salvation  in  it."  It  is  an 
aggravation,  rather,  of  the  only  one  thing  which 
ever  endangers  the  Union.  ...  It  could  not  but  be 


72  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

expected  of  its  author,  that  it  would  be  looked 
upon  as  a  measure  for  the  extension  of  slavery, 
aggravated  by  a  gross  breach  of  faith. 

I  object  to  it  because  the  fathers  of  the  republic 
eschewed  and  rejected  it.  ...  They  found  the  insti 
tution  existing  among  us,  which  they  could  not 
help,  and  they  cast  blame  on  the  British  king  for 
having  permitted  its  introduction.  BEFORE  the 
Constitution,  they  prohibited  its  introduction  into 
the  North-western  Territory,  the  only  country  we 
owned  then  free  from  it.  At  the  framing  and 
adoption  of  the  Constitution,  they  forbore  to  so 
much  as  mention  the  word  "  slave,"  or  "  slavery," 
in  the  whole  instrument.  In  the  provision  for  the 
recovery  of  fugitives,  the  slave  is  spoken  of  as  a 

"  PERSON  HELD  TO   SERVICE  OR   LABOR."  .  .  .  Thus 

the  thing  is  hid  away  in  the  Constitution,  just  as  an 
afflicted  man  hides  away  a  wen  or  cancer,  which 
he  dares  not  cut  out  at  once  lest  he  bleed  to  death  ; 
with  the  promise,  nevertheless,  that  the  cutting 
may  begin  at  the  end  of  a  certain  time.  LESS  than 
this  our  fathers  COULD  not  do ;  and  MORE  they 
WOULD  not  do.  .  .  .  They  hedged  and  hemmed  it 
in  to  the  narrowest  limits  of  necessity.  —  October, 
1854. 


SLAVERY   AND   ANTISLAVERY.  73 

GRADUAL  EMANCIPATION. 

TF  all  earthly  power  were  given  me,  I  should  not 
know  what  to  do  as  to  the  existing  institution. 
My  first  impulse  would  be  to  free  all  the  slaves, 
and  send  them  to  Liberia,  —  to  their  own  native 
land.  .  .  .  But,  if  they  were  all  landed  there  in  a 
day,  they  would  all  perish  in  the  next  ten  days; 
and  there  are  not  surplus  shipping  and  surplus 
money  enough  to  carry  them  there  in  many  times 
ten  days.  What  then?  Free  them  all,  and  keep 
them  among  us  as  underlings?  Is  it  quite  certain 
that  this  betters  their  condition?  I  think  I  would 
not  hold  one  in  slavery  at  any  rate ;  yet  the  point 
is  not  clear  enough  for  me  to  denounce  people 
upon.  What  next?  Free  them,  and  make  them 
politically  and  socially  our  equals?  My  own  feel 
ings  will  not  admit  of  this  ;  and,  if  mine  would,  we 
well  know  that  those  of  the  great  mass  of  white 
people  will  not.  A  universal  feeling,  whether 
well  or  ill  founded,  cannot  be  safely  disregarded. 
We  cannot  then  make  them  equals.  It  does  seem 
to  me  that  systems  of  gradual  emancipation  might 
be  adopted ;  but,  for  their  tardiness  in  this,  I  will 
not  undertake  to  judge  our  brethren  of  the  South. 
—  Odober,  1854. 

4 


74  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

THE   COMPROMISES   OF  1850. 

TN  answer  to  Douglas's  assumption,  that  they  had 
uo  connection  with  one  another,  and  that  Illi 
nois  came  in  as  a  Slave  State,  &c. :  If  we  do  not 
know  these  things,  we  do  not  know  that  we  ever 
had  a  Revolutionary  War,  or  such  a  chief  as  Wash 
ington.  To  deny  these  things  is  to  deny  our 
national  axioms,  or  dogmas  at  least ;  and  puts  an 
end  to  all  argument.  If  a  man  will  stand  up  and 
assert,  and  repeat  and  re-assert,  that  two  and  two 
do  not  make  four,  I  know  nothing  in  the  power  of 
argument  that  can  stop  him.  I  think  I  can  answer 
the  Judge,  so  long  as  he  sticks  to  the  premises  ;  but, 
when  he  flies  from  them,  I  cannot  work  an  argu 
ment  into  the  consistency  of  a  maternal  gag,  and 
actually  close  his  mouth  with  it.  In  such  a  case,  I 
can  only  commend  him  to  the  seventy  thousand 
answers  just  in  from  Pennsylvania,  Ohio,  and  In 
diana. —  Odobcr,  1854. 


RUSHING   TO  ARMS. 

Senator   objects,  that   those  who   oppose 
him    in   this  measure  do  not  entirely  agree 
with  one  another.     He  reminds  me,  that,  in  my 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  75 

firm  adherence  to  the  constitutional  rights  of  the 
Slave  States,  I  differ  widely  from  others  who  are 
co-operating  with  me  in  opposing  the  Nebraska 
bill.  .  .  .  He  should  remember,  that  he  took  us  by 
surprise  —  astounded  us  —  by  this  measure.  We 
were  thunder-struck  and  stunned ;  and  we  reeled 
and  fell  in  utter  confusion.  But  we  rose ;  each 
fighting ;  grasping  whatever  he  could  first  reach, 
—  a  scythe,  —  a  pitchfork,  —  a  chopping-axe,  —  or 
a  butcher's  cleaver.  We  struck  in  the  direction  of 
the  sound ;  and  we  are  rapidly  closing  in  upon 
him.  He  must  not  think  to  divert  us  from  our 
purpose,  by  showing  us  that  our  drill,  our  dress, 
and  our  weapons,  are  not  entirely  perfect  and  uni 
form.  When  the  storm  shall  be  past,  he  shall  find 
us  still  AMERICANS  ;  no  less  devoted  to  the  con 
tinued  union  and  prosperity  of  the  country  than 
heretofore. —  Odober,  1854. 


NEGRO   A    MAN. 

r  I  ^HE  Republicans  inculcate,  with  whatever  of 
ability  they. can,  that  the  negro  is  a  man; 
that  his  bondage  is  cruelly  wrong,  and  that  the  field 
of  his  oppression  might  not  be  enlarged.  The 
Democrats  deny  his  manhood ;  deny,  or  dwarf  to 


76  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

insignificance,  the  wrong  of  his  bondage  ;  so  far  as 
possible,  crush  all  sympathy  for  him,  and  cultivate 
and  excite  hatred  and  disgust  against  him  ;  compli 
ment  themselves  as  Union-savers  for  doing  so,  and 
call  the  indefinite  outspreading  of  his  bondage  "  a 
sacred  right  of  self-government."  The  plainest 
print  cannot  be  read  through  a  gold  eagle ;  and  it 
will  be  ever  hard  to  find  many  men  who  will  send 
a  slave  to  Liberia  and  pay  his  passage,  while  they 
can  send  him  to  a  new  country,  —  Kansas,  for  in 
stance,  —  and  sell  him  for  fifteen  hundred  dollars, 
and  the  rise.  —  June,  1857. 


SLAVEHOLDERS  AND  AMALGAMATION. 
/THHE  very  Dred-Scott  case  affords  a  strong  test 
as  to  which  party  most  favors  amalgamation, 
the  Republicans  or  the  dear  Union-saving  Democ 
racy.  Dred  Scott,  his  wife,  and  two  daughters, 
were  all  involved  in  the  suit.  We  desired  the 
Court  to  have  held  that  they  were  citizens,  so  far  at 
least  as  to  entitle  them  to  a  hearing  as  to  whether 
they  were  free  or  not ;  and  then,  also,  that  they  were, 
in  fact  and  in  law,  really  free.  Could  we  have  had 
our  way,  the  chances  of  these  black  girls  ever  mix 
ing  their  blood  with  that  of  white  people,  would 


SLAVERY   AND   ANTISLAVERY.  77 

have  been  diminished,  at  least  to  the  extent  that  it 
could  not  have  been  without  their  consent.  But 
Judge  Douglas  is  delighted  to  have  them  decided  to 
be  slaves,  and  not  human  enough  to  have  a  hearing, 
even  if  they  were  free,  and  thus  left  subject  to  the 
forced  concubinage  of  their  masters,  and  liable  to 
become  the  mothers  of  mulattoes,  in  spite  of  them 
selves  ;  the  very  state  of  case  that  produces  nine- 
tenths  of  all  the  mulattoes,  all  the  mixing  of  blood, 
in  the  nation. — June,  1857. 


THE    STONE    OF   STUMBLING. 

*T*HE  assertion  that  "  all  men  are  created  equal " 
was  of  no  practical  use  in  effecting  our  sepa 
ration  from  Great  Britain  ;  and  it  was  placed  in  the 
Declaration,  not  for  that,  but  for  future  use.  Its 
authors  mean  it  to  be  —  as,  thank  God !  it  is  now 
proving  itself —  a  stumbling-block  to  all  those  who, 
in  after-times,  might  seek  to  turn  a  free  people  back 
into  the  hateful  paths  of  despotism.  They  knew 
the  proneness  of  prosperity  to  breed  tyrants ;  and 
they  meant,  when  such  should  re-appear  in  this  fair 
land  and  commence  their  vocation,  they  should  find 
left  for  them  one  hard  nut  to  crack.  — June,  1857. 


78  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

EQUAL    IN  RIGHTS. 

T  TE  (Douglas)  finds  the  Republicans  insisting 
that  the  Declaration  of  Independence  in- 
'  eludes  ALL  men,  black  as  well  as  white,  and  forth 
with  boldly  denies  that  it  includes  negroes  at  all, 
and  proceeds  to  argue  gravely,  that  all  who  contend 
it  does  do  so  only  because  they  want  to  vote  and  eat 
and  sleep  and  marry  with  negroes !  .  .  .  Now,  I 
protest  against  the  counterfeit  logic  which  concludes 
that,  because  I  do  not  want  a  black  woman  for  a 
slave,  I  must  necessarily  want  her  for  a  wife.  I 
need  not  have  her  for  either.  I  can  just  leave  her 
alone.  In  some  respects  she  certainly  is  not  my 
equal ;  but  in  her  natural  right  to  eat  the  bread  she 
earns  with  her  own  hands,  without  asking  leave  of 
any  one  else,  she  is  my  equal,  and  the  equal  of  all 
others. —  June,  1857. 

DRED-SCOTT  DECISION. 

TTTTIAT  is  the  Dred-Scott  decision?  Judge 
Douglas  labors  to  show  that  it  is  one  thing, 
while  I  think  it  is  altogether  different.  It  is  a  long 
opinion ;  but  it  is  all  embodied  in  this  short  state 
ment:  "The  Constitution  of  the  United  States 


SLAVERY   AND   ANTISLAVERY.  79 

forbids  Congress  to  deprive  a  man  of  his  property 
without  due  process  of  law.  The  right  of  prop 
erty  in  slaves  is  distinctly  and  expressly  affirmed 
in  that  Constitution :  therefore,  if  Congress  shall 
undertake  to  say  that  a  man's  slave  is  no  longer  his 
slave  when  he  crosses  a  certain  line  into  a  Terri 
tory,  that  is  depriving  him  of  his  property,  without 
due  process  of  law.  —  September,  1859. 


CHIEF-JUSTICE    TANEY. 
/^HIEF-JUSTICE  TANEY,  after  quoting  from 


the  Declaration  of  Independence,  says,  "  The 
general  words  above  quoted  would  seem  to  include 
the  whole  human  family  ;  and,  if  they  were  used  in 
a  similar  instrument  at  this  day,  would  be  so  under 
stood." 

The  Chief-Justice  does  not  directly  assert,  but 
plainly  assumes  as  a  fact,  that  the  public  estimate 
of  the  black  man  is  more  favorable  now  than  in  the 
days  of  the  Revolution.  This  assumption  is  a  mis 
take.  ...  In  those  days,  our  Declaration  of  Inde 
pendence  was  held  sacred  by  all,  and  thought  to 
include  all  ;  but  now,  to  aid  in  making  the  bond 
age  of  the  negro  universal  and  eternal,  it  is  assailed, 


8o  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

sneered  at,  and  construed,  and  hawked  at  and  torn, 
till,  if  its  framers  could  rise  from  their  graves,  they 
could  not  at  all  recognize  it. — June,  1857. 


HOW  SHALL    WE   TREAT  THE  SOUTH f 

~VT  7*HEN  we  do,  as  we  say,  beat  you,  you  per 
haps  want  to  know  what  we  mean  to  do 
with  you. 

We  mean  to  treat  you,  as  near  as  we  possibly  can, 
as  Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison  treated  you. 
We  mean  to  leave  you  alone,  and  in  no  way  inter 
fere  with  your  institution.  .  .  .  We  mean  to  remem 
ber  that  you  are  as  good  as  we ;  that  you  have  as 
good  hearts  in  your  bosoms  as  other  people,  or  as 
we  claim  to  have,  and  treat  you  accordingly.  We 
mean  to  marry  your  girls  when  we  have  a  chance, 
—  the  white  ones  I  mean  ;  and  I  have  the  honor  to 
inform  you  that  I  once  did  have  a  chance  in  that 
way. —  September,  1859. 


BLACK  AND    WHITE. 

T  HAVE  never  seen,  to  my  knowledge,  a  man, 

woman,  or  child,  who  was  in  favor  of  producing 

perfect  equality,  social  and  political,  between  ne- 


SLAVERY    AND    ANTISLAVERY.  Si 

groes  and  white  men.  I  recollect  of  but  one 
distinguished  instance  that  I  ever  heard  of  so  fre 
quently  as  to  be  satisfied  of  its  correctness  ;  and  that 
is  the  case  of  Judge  Douglas's  old  friend,  Colo 
nel  Richard  M.  Johnson.  ...  I  have  never  had  the 
least  apprehension  that  I  or  my  friends  would 
marry  negroes,  if  there  was  no  law  to  keep  them 
from  it;  but  as  Judge  Douglas  and  his  friends 
seem  to  be  in  great  apprehension  that  they  might, 
if  there  were  no  law  to  keep  them  from  it,  I  jive 
him  the  most  solemn  pledge,  that  I  will,  to  the 
very  last,  stand  by  the  law  of  the  State  which  for 
bids  the  marrying  of  white  people  with  negroes.  — 
September,  1859. 


LOCKED   AND    BOLTED    IN. 

A  LL  the  powers  of  earth  seem  rapidly  combin.- 

ing  against  him  (the   negro).     Mammon    is 

after  him ;    ambition  follows,  philosophy  follows ; 

and  the  theology  of  the  day  is  fast  joining  the  cry. 

They   have   him    in   his   prison-house ;    they  have 

searched  his  person,  and  left  no  prying-instrument 

with  him.     One  after  another  they  have  closed  the 

heavy  iron  doors  upon  him  ;    and  now  they  have 

him,  as  it  were,  bolted  in  with  a  lock  of  a  hundred 

4*  F 


82 


keys,  which  can  never  be  unlocked  without  the  con 
currence  of  every  key ;  the  keys  in  the  hands  of  a 
hundred  different  men,  and  they  scattered  to  a  hun 
dred  different  and  distant  places ;  and  they  stand 
musing  as  to  what  invention,  in  all  the  dominions 
of  mind  and  matter,  can  be  produced  to  make  the 
impossibility  of  his  escape  more  complete  than  it 
is. — June,  1857. 


SLAVER T  AND   CLIMATE. 

T^\OUGLAS  will  tell  you,  men  of  Ohio,  that,  if 
•^^^  you  choose  to  have  laws  against  slavery,  it  is 
because  your  climate  is  not  suited  to  slave-labor, 
and  therefore  you  have  constitutions  and  laws 
against  it.  Let  us  attend  to  that  argument  for  a 
while,  and  see  if  it 'be  sound.  You  do  not  raise 
sugar-cane  (except  the  new-fashioned  sugar-cane, 
and  you  won't  raise  that  long)  ;  but  they  do  raise  it 
in  Louisiana.  You  don't  raise  it  in  Ohio  because 
you  can't  raise  it  profitably,  because  the  climate 
don't  suit  it.  They  do  raise  it  in  Louisiana  because 
there  it  is  profitable.  Now,  Douglas  will  tell  you 
that  is  precisely  the  slavery  question.  If  that  is  so, 
then  it  leads  to  dealing  with  the  one  precisely  as 
with  the  other.  Is  there  any  thing  in  the  Constitu- 


SLAVERY    AND    ANTISLAVERY.  83 

tion  or  laws  of  Ohio  against  raising  sugar-cane? 
Surely  not !  No  man  desires  to  raise  sugar-cane  in 
Ohio  ;  but,  if  any  man  did  desire  to  do  so,  you  would 
say  it  was  a  tyrannical  law  that  forbids  his  doing 
so ;  and  whenever  you  shall  agree  with  Douglas, 
whenever  your  minds  are  brought  to  adopt  his 
argument,  as  surely  wrill  you  have  reached  the  con 
clusion,  that,  although  slavery  is  not  profitable  in 
Ohio,  if  any  man  wants  it,  it  is  wrong  not  to  let 
him  have  it.  —  September,  1859. 


EQUAL  RIGHTS. 

"  TN  debating  with  Senator  Douglas,  during  the 
•*•  memorable  contest  of  last  fall,  Mr.  Lincoln 
declared  in  favor  of  negro  suffrage,  and  attempted 
to  defend  that  vile  conception  against  the  Little 
Giant."  Extraa  from  Ohio  "  Statesman."  "  What 
I  did  say  was  in  substance  as  follows :  '  I  will 
say,  then,  that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in 
favor  of  bringing  about,  in  any  way,  the  social 
and  political  equality  of  the  white  and  black  races ; 
that  I  am  not,  nor  ever  have  been,  in  favor  of 
making  voters  or  jurors  of  negroes,  nor  of  quali 
fying  them  to  hold  office,  or  intermarry  with  white 
people ;  and  I  will  say,  in  addition  to  this,  that 


84  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

there  is  a  physical  difference  between  the  white 
and  black  races,  which,  I  believe,  will  for  ever  for 
bid  the  two  races  living  together  on  terms  of  social 
and  political  equality.'"  —  September,  1859 


STAND  BY  DUTT. 

TF  slavery  is  right,  all  words,  acts,  laws,  and  con- 
•*"  stitutions  against  it  are  themselves  wrong,  and 
should  be  silenced  and  swept  away.  If  it  is  right, 
we  cannot  justly  object  to  its  nationality,  its  univer 
sality  ;  if  it  is  wrong,  they  cannot  justly  insist  upon 
its  extension,  its  enlargement.  All  they  ask,  we 
could  readily  grant,  if  we  thought  slavery  right.  .  .  . 
If  our  sense  of  duty  forbids  this,  then  let  us  stand 
by  our  duty  fearlessly  and  effectively.  .  .  .  Let  us 
have  faith  that  right  makes  might ;  and,  in  that 
faith,  let  us  to  the  end  dare  to  do  our  duty  as  we 
understand  it.  —  February,  1860. 


MASON  AND  DIXON. 

TN  answer  to  Douglas's  assertion,  that  there  was 
"  a  line  drawn  by  the  Almighty  across  this  con 
tinent,  on  the   one   side   of  which   the   soil    must 
always   be   cultivated  by  slaves."     I  want  to   ask 


SLAVERY   AND   ANTISLAVERY.  85 

your  attention  to  that  proposition  again  :  that  there 
is  one  portion  of  this  continent  where  the  Almighty 
has  designed  the  soil  shall  always  be  cultivated  by 
slaves ;  that  its  being  cultivated  by  slaves  at  that 
place  is  right ;  that  it  has  the  direct  sympathy  and 
authority  of  the  Almighty.  Whenever  you  can  get 
these  Northern  audiences  to  adopt  the  opinion,  that 
slavery  is  right  on  the  other  side  of  the  Ohio,  .  .  . 
they  will  very  readily  make  the  other  argument, 
which  is  perfectly  logical,  that  that  which  is  right 
on  that  side  of  the  Ohio  cannot  be  wrong  on  this  ; 
and  that,  if  you  have  that  property  on  that  side  of 
the  Ohio,  under  the  seal  and  stamp  of  the  Almighty, 
when  by  any  means  it  escapes  over  here,  it  is  wrong 
to  have  constitutions  and  laws  to  devil  you  about  it. 
—  September,  1859. 


WHAT   WILL   SATISFY  THE  SOUTH? 

r  I  ^HIS,  and  this  only:  Cease  to  call  slavery 
wrong,  and  join  them  in  calling  it  right. 
And  this  must  be  done  thoroughly,  —  done  in  a&s 
as  well  as  in  words.  Silence  will  not  be  tolerated. 
We  must  place  ourselves  avowredly  with  them. 
Douglas's  new  sedition  law  must  be  enacted  and 
enforced,  suppressing  all  declarations  that  slavery  '*s 


86  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

wrong,  whether  made  in  politics,  in  presses,  in  pul 
pits,  or  in  private.  We  must  arrest  and  return 
their  fugitive  slaves  with  greedy  pleasure.  We 
must  pull  down  our  Free-State  Constitutions.  The 
whole  atmosphere  must  be  disinfected  from  all 
taint  of  opposition  to  slavery,  before  they  will  cease 
to  believe  that  all  their  troubles  proceed  from  us.  — 
February,  1860. 


NEGROES  AND    CROCODILES. 

T  ANSWER  to  Douglas's  declaration,  that,  "  in  all 
A  contests  between  the  negro  and  the  white  man, 
he  was  for  the  white  man  ;  but,  in  all  questions  be 
tween  the  negro  and  the  crocodile,  he  was  for  the 
negro."  He  says,  If  there  was  a  necessary  con 
flict  between  the  white  man  and  the  negro,  I  should 
be  for  the  white  man  as  much  as  Douglas ;  but  I 
say  there  is  no  such  necessary  conflict.  I  say  that 
there  is  room  for  us  all  to  be  free ;  and  that  it  not 
only  does  not  wrong  the  white  man  that  the  negro 
should  be  free,  but  it  positively  wrongs  the  mass  of 
the  white  men  that  the  negro  should  be  enslaved ; 
that  the  mass  of  white  men  are  really  injured  by  the 
effects  of  slave-labor  in  the  vicinity  of  the  fields  of 
their  own  labor. 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  87 

The  other  branch  of  it  is,  that,  in  a  struggle  be 
tween  the  negro  and  the  crocodile,  he  is  for  the 
negro.  Well,  I  don't  know  that  there  is  any  strug 
gle  between  the  negro  and  the  crocodile  either.  I 
suppose,  that,  if  a  crocodile  (or,  as  we  old  Ohio- 
river  boatmen  used  to  call  them,  alligators)  should 
come  across  a  white  man,  he  would  kill  him,  if  he 
could  ;  and  so  he  would,  a  negro.  But  what,  at  last, 
is  this  proposition  ?  I  believe  it  is  a  sort  of  propo 
sition  in  proportion,  which  may  be  stated  thus: 
"  As  the  negro  is  to  the  white  man,  so  is  the  croco 
dile  to  the  negro ;  and  as  the  negro  may  rightfully 
treat  the  crocodile  as  a  beast  or  reptile,  so  the  white 
man  may  rightfully  treat  the  negro  as  a  beast  or 
reptile."  Now,  my  brother  Kentuckians  who  be 
lieve  in  this,  you  ought  to  thank  Judge  Douglas 
for  having  put  that  in  a  much  more  taking  way 
than  any  of  yourselves  have  done.  —  September, 
1859. 


JEFFERSON. 

TN  speaking  of  the  question  of  slavery  as  being 

something  trivial  and  local,  this  is  an  idea,  I 

suppose,    which    has    arisen    in   Judge    Douglas's 

mind  from   his  peculiar  structure.     I  suppose  the 


88 


institution  of  slavery  looks  small  to  him.  He  is 
so  put  up  by  nature,  that  a  lash  upon  his  back 
would  hurt  him  ;  but  a  lash  upon  anybody  else's 
back  does  not  hurt  him.  That  is  the  build  of 
the  man,  and  consequently  he  looks  upon  the 
matter  of  slavery  in  this  unimportant  light.  ...  .  He 
ought  to  remember  that  there  was  once  in  this 
country  a  man  by  the  name  of  Thomas  Jefferson, 
supposed  to  be  a  Democrat :  .  .  .  that  man  did  not 
take  exactly  this  view  of  the  insignificance  of  the 
element  of  slavery,  which  our  friend  Judge  Douglas 
does.  In  contemplation  of  this  thing,  we  all  know 
he  was  led  to  exclaim,  "  I  tremble  for  my  country, 
when  I  remember  that  God  is  just.".  .  .  There  was 
danger  to  this  country  —  danger  of  the  avenging 
justice  of  God  —  in  that  little,  unimportant  popular 
sovereignty  question  of  Judge  Douglas.  HE  sup 
posed  there  was  a  question  of  GOD'S  ETERNAL  JUS 
TICE,  wrapped  up  in  the  enslaving  of  any  race  of 
men,  or  any  man  ;  and  that  those  who  did  so,  braved 
the  arm  of  JEHOVAH  ;  that,  when  a  nation  thus 
dared  the  Almighty,  every  friend  of  that  nation 
had  cause  to  dread  his  wrath.  Choose  ye,  between 
JEFFERSON  and  DOUGLAS,  as  to  what  is  the  true 
view  of  this  element  among  us.  —  September, 
1859. 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  09 

IS  SLAVER T  UNIMPORTANT? 

THvOUGLAS  assumes  (though  without  proving  > 
-*-^  it),  that  slavery  is  one  of  those  little,  unim 
portant,  trivial  matters,  which  are  of  just  about  as 
much  consequence  as  the  question  would  be  to  me, 
whether  my  neighbor  should  raise  horned  cattle, 
or  plant  tobacco ;  that  there  is  no  moral  question 
about  it,  but  that  it  is  all  a  matter  of  dollars  and 
cents ;  that,  when  a  new  Territory  is  opened  for 
settlement,  the  first  man  who  goes  into  it  may  plant 
there  a  thing,  which,  like  the  Canada  thistle,  or 
some  other  of  those  pests  of  the  soil,  cannot  be  dug 
out  by  the  millions  of  men  who  will  come  thereafter. 
.  .  .  He  ignores  the  very  well-known  fact,  that  we 
never  had  a  serious  menace  to  our  political  exist 
ence,  except  it  sprang  from  this  thing,  which  he 
chooses  to  regard  as  only  upon  a  par  with  onions 
and  potatoes. —  September,  1859. 


SAVE    TOUR  MONET. 

TF  the  war  continues  long,  as  it  must,  if  the  ob- 

jec~l  be  not   sooner  attained,  the  institution  in 

your  States  will  be  extinguished  by  mere  friction 

and  abrasion,  —  by  the  mere  incidents  of  the  war. 


90  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

It  will  be  gone,  and  you  will  have  nothing  valuable 
in  lieu  of  it.  Much  of  its  value  is  gone  already. 
How  much  better  for  you,  and  for  your  people,  to 
take  the  step  which  at  once  shortens  the  war,  and 
secures  substantial  compensation  for  that  which  is 
sure  to  be  wholly  lost  in  any  other  event !  How 
much  better  to  thus  save  the  money,  which  else  we 
sink  for  ever  in  this  war  !  How  much  better  to  do 
it  while  we  can,  lest  the  war,  ere  long,  render  us 
pecuniarily  unable  to  do  it !  How  much  better,  for 
you  as  seller  and  the  nation  as  buyer,  to  sell  out 
and  buy  out  that  without  which  the  war  could  never 
have  been,  than  to  sink  both  the  thing  to  be  sold 
and  the  price  of  it  in  cutting  one  another's  throats  I 
—July,  1862. 


EMANCIPA  TION. 

TN  a  certain  sense,  the  liberation  of  slaves  is  the 
destruction  of  property,  —  property  acquired  by 
descent  or  by  purchase,  the  same  as  any  other  prop 
erty.  It  is  no  less  true  for  having  been  often  said, 
that  the  people  of  the  South  are  not  more  responsi 
ble  for  the  original  introduction  of  this  property 
than  are  the  people  of  the  North  ;  and  when  it  is  re 
membered  how  unhesitatingly  we  all  use  cotton  and 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  9! 

sugar,  and  share  the  profits  of  dealing  in  them,  it 
may  not  be  quite  safe  to  say  that  the  South  has  been 
more  responsible  than  the  North  for  its  continuance. 
If,  then,  for  a  common  object,  this  property  is  to  be 
sacrificed,  is  it  not  just  that  it  be  done  at  a  common 
charge  ?  —  December,  1862. 


EMANCIPATION    WILL    NOT    REDUCE    THE 
WAGES    OF    WHITE    LABOR. 

TS  it  true  that  colored  people  can  displace  any 
more  white  labor  by  being  free,  than  by  re 
maining  slaves  ?  If  they  stay  in  their  old  places, 
they  jostle  no  white  laborers ;  if  they  leave  their 
old  places,  they  leave  them  open  to  white  laborers. 
.  .  .  Emancipation,  even  without  deportation,  would 
probably  enhance  the  wages  of  white  labor ;  and, 
very  surely,  would  not  reduce  them.  .  .  .  With 
deportation,  even  to  a  limited  extent,  enhanced 
wages  to  white  labor  is  mathematically  certain. 
Labor  is  like  any  other  commodity  in  the  market : 
increase  the  demand  for  it,  and  you  increase  the 
price  of  it.  Reduce  the  supply  of  black  labor,  by 
colonizing  the  black  laborer  out  of  the  country,  and 
by  precisely  so  much  you  increase  the  demand  for 
and  wages  of  white  labor.  —  December,  1862. 


92  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

A    LETTER    FROM  HIM  HITHERTO 
UNPUBLISHED. 

GUTBERTH  BULLITT,  Esq.,  New  Orleans,  La. 
OIR,  —  The  copy  of  a  letter  addressed  to  your 
self,  by  Mr.  Thomas  J.  Durant,  has  been  shown 
to  me.  The  writer  appears  to  be  an  able,  a  dispas 
sionate,  and  an  entirely  sincere  man.  The  first  part 
of  the  letter  is  devoted  to  an  effort  to  show,  that  the 
secession  ordinance  of  Louisiana  was  adopted 
against  the  will  of  a  majority  of  the  people.  This 
is  probably  true ;  and  in  that  fact  may  be  found 
some  instruction.  Why  did  they  allow  the  ordi- 
dinance  to  go  into  effect?  Why  did  they  not  exert 
themselves?  Why  stand  passive,  and  allow  them 
selves  to  be  trodden  down  by  a  minority  ?  Why  did 
they  not  hold  popular  meetings,  and  have  a  conven 
tion  of  their  own,  to  express  and  enforce  the  true 
sentiments  of  the  State?  If  pre-organization  was 
against  them  then,  why  not  do  this  now  that  the 
United- States  army  is  present  to  protect  them  ? 
The  paralyzer,  the  dead  palsy,  of  the  Government 
in  the  whole  struggle  is,  that  this  class  of  men  will 
do  nothing  for  the  Government,  nothing  for  them 
selves,  except  that  the  Government  shall  not  strike 
its  enemies  lest  they  should  be  struck  by  accident. 


SLAVERY    AXD    ANTISLAVERY.  93 

Mr.  Durant  complains,  that,  in  various  ways, 
the  relation  of  master  and  slave  is  disturbed  by  the 
presence  of  our  army  ;  and  he  considers  it  particu 
larly  vexatious,  that  this  in  part  is  done  under  cover 
of  an  Ac~l  of  Congress,  while  Constitutional  guar 
antees  are  superadded  on  the  plea  of  military  neces 
sity.  The  truth  is,  that  what  is  done  and  omitted 
about  slaves  is  done  and  omitted  on  the  same  mili 
tary  necessity.  It  is  a  military  necessity  to  have 
men  and  money  ;  and  we  cannot  get  either  in  suffi 
cient  numbers  or  amounts,  if  we  keep  from  or  drive 
from  our  lines  slaves  coming  to  them. 

Mr.  Durant  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  pressure  in 
this  direction,  nor  of  my  efforts  to  hold  it  within 
bounds,  till  he,  and  such  as  he,  shall  have  time  to 
help  themselves. 

I  am  not  posted  to  speak  understandingly  on  the 
public  regulations  of  which  Mr.  Durant  complains. 
If  experience  shows  any  of  them  to  be  wrong,  let 
them  be  set  right.  I  think  I  can  perceive,  in  the 
freedom  of  trade  which  Mr.  Durant  urges,  that  he 
would  relieve  both  friends  and  enemies  from  the 
pressure  of  the  blockade.  By  this,  he  would  serve 
the  enemy  more  effectively  than  the  enemy  is  able 
to  serve  himself. 

I  do  not  say  or  believe  that  to  serve  the  enemy  is 


94  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

the  purpose  of  Mr.  Durant,  or  that  he  is  conscious 
of  any  purposes  other  than  national  and  patriotic 
ones.  Still,  if  there  were  a  class  of  men,  who, 
having  no  choice  of  sides  in  the  contest,  were 
anxious  only  to  have  quiet  and  comfort  for  them 
selves  while  it  rages,  and  to  fall  in  with  the  victori 
ous  side  at  the  end  of  it,  without  loss  to  themselves, 
their  advice  as  to  the  mode  of  conducting  the  con 
test  would  be  precisely  such  as  his. 

He  speaks  of  no  duty,  apparently  thinks  of  none, 
resting  upon  Union  men.  He  even  thinks  it  injuri 
ous  to  the  Union  cause  that  they  should  be  restrained 
in  trade  and  passage  without  taking  sides.  They 
are  to  touch  neither  a  sail  nor  a  pump,  —  live  merely 
passengers  ("dead-heads"  at  that),  to  be  carried 
throughout  the  storm,  and  safely  landed  right  side 
up.  Nay,  more :  even  a  mutineer  is  to  go  un 
touched  lest  these  sacred  passengers  receive  an  acci 
dental  wound. 

Of  course,  the  rebellion  will  never  be  suppressed 
in  Louisiana,  if  the  professed  Union  men  there  will 
neither  help  to  do  it,  nor  permit  the  Government  to 
do  it  without  their  help. 

Now,  I  think  the  true  remedy  is  very  different 
from  what  is  suggested  by  Mr.  Durant.  It  does  not 
lie  in  rounding  the  rough  angles  of  the  war,  but  in 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  95 

removing  the  necessity  for  the  war.  The  people  of 
Louisiana,  who  wish  protection  to  person  and  prop 
erty,  have  but  to  reach  forth  their  hands  and  take 
it.  Let  them  in  good  faith  re-inaugurate  the  na 
tional  authority,  and  set  up  a  State  government 
conforming  thereto  under  the  Constitution.  They 
know  how  to  do  it,  and  can  have  the  protection 
of  the  army  while  doing  it.  The  army  will  be 
withdrawn  so  soon  as  such  government  can  dis 
pense  with  its  presence  ;  and  the  people  of  the 
State  can  then,  upon  the  old  terms,  govern  them 
selves  to  their  own  liking.  This  is  very  simple  and 
easy. 

If  they  will  not  do  this,  if  they  prefer  to  hazard 
all  for  the  sake  of  destroying  the  Government,  it  is 
for  them  to  consider  whether  it  is  probable  I  will 
surrender  the  Government  to  save  them  from  losing 
all.  If  they  decline  what  I  suggest,  you  scarcely 
need  to  ask  what  I  will  do. 

What  would  you  do  in  my  position  ? 

Would  you  drop  the  war  where  it  is?  or  would 
you  prosecute  it  in  future  with  elder-stalk  squirts 
charged  with  rose-water?  Would  you  deal  lighter 
blows  rather  then  heavier  ones  ?  Would  you  give 
up  the  contest,  leaving  every  available  means  un 
applied? 


96  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

I  am  in  no  boastful  mood.  I  shall  not  do  more 
than  I  can,  but  shall  do  all  I  can  to  save  the  Gov 
ernment,  which  is  my  sworn  duty,  as  well  as  my 
personal  inclination.  -  I  shall  do  nothing  in  malice. 
What  I  deal  with  is  too  vast  for  malicious  dealing. 

Yours  very  truly, 

A.  LINCOLN. 
WASHINGTON,  D.C.,  July  28,  1862. 


PROTECTION    TO    COLORED    SOLDIERS. 

A  T  the  commencement  of  the  war,  it  was  doubt- 
ful  whether  black  men  would  be  used  as  sol 
diers  or  not.  The  matter  was  examined  into  very 
carefully  ;  and,  after  mature  deliberation,  the  whole 
matter  resting  as  it  were  with  himself,  he,  in  his 
judgment,  decided  that  they  should.  He  was  re 
sponsible  for  the  ac~l  to  the  American  people,  to  a 
Christian  nation,  to  the  future  historian  ;  and,  above 
all,  to  his  God,  to  whom  he  would  have  one  day  to 
render  an  account  of  his  stewardship.  He  would 
now  say,  that,  in  his  opinion,  the  black  soldier 
should  have  the  same  protection  as  the  white  sol 
dier  ;  and  he  would  have  it.  ...  When  the  Gov 
ernment  knows  the  facts  from  official  sources,  and 
they  prove  to  substantiate  the  reports,  retribution 
will  be  surely  given.  —  April,  1864. 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  97 


IT  IS   SIMPLY  A    WAR-MEASURE. 

T  TNDERSTAND,  I  raise  no  objeftions  against 
^^  it  on  legal  or  constitutional  grounds ;  for,  as 
Commander-in-Chief  of  the  army  and  navy,  in  time 
of  war  I  suppose  I  have  a  right  to  take  any  mea 
sures  which  may  best  subdue  the  enemy :  nor  do  I 
urge  objections  of  a  moral  nature,  in  view  of  possi 
ble  consequences  of  insurrection  and  massacre  at 
the  South.  I  view  this  matter  as  a  practical  war- 
measure,  to  be  decided  on  according  to  the  advan 
tages  or  disadvantages  it  may  offer  to  the  suppres 
sion  of  the  rebellion. 


GRADUAL   EMANCIPATION. 

T  AM  pressed  with  a  difficulty  not  yet  mentioned  ; 
one  which  threatens  division  among  those  who, 
united,  are  none  too  strong.  An  instance  of  it  is 
known  to  you.  General  Hunter  is  an  honest  man. 
He  was,  and  I  hope  still  is,  my  friend.  I  valued 
him  none  the  less  for  his  agreeing  with  me  in  the 
general  wish,  that  all  men  everywhere  could  be 
free.  He  proclaimed  all  men  free  within  certain 
States,  and  I  repudiated  the  proclamation.  He  ex 
pected  more  good  and  less  harm  from  the  measure 
5  G 


98  THE    PRESIDENT  S    WORDS. 

than  I  could  believe  would  follow.  Yet,  in  repu 
diating  it,  I  gave  dissatisfaction,  if  not  offence,  to 
many  whose  support  the  country  cannot  afford  to 
lose. 

The  traitor  against  the  general  Government  for 
feits  his  slave  at  least  as  justly  as  he  does  any  other 
property ;  and  he  forfeits  both  to  the  Government 
against  which  he  offends. —  July,  1862. 


I 


PROCLAMATION   OF  EMANCIPATION. 

How  ivill  it  operate  just  notv  ? 

F,  now,  the  pressure  of  war  should  call  off  our 
forces  from  New  Orleans,  to  defend  some  other 
point,  what  is  to  prevent  the  masters  from  reducing 
the  blacks  to  slavery  again?  for  I  am  told  that 
whenever  the  rebels  take  any  black  prisoners,  free 
or  slave,  they  immediately  auction  them  off!  They 
did  so  with  those  they  took  from  a  boat,  in  the  Ten 
nessee  River,  a  few  days  ago.  And  then  I  am  very 
ungenerously  attacked  for  it !  For  instance  :  when, 
after  the  late  battles  at  and  near  Bull  Run,  an  expe 
dition  went  out  from  Washington,  under  a  flag  of 
truce,  to  bury  the  dead  and  bring  in  the  wounded  ; 
and  the  rebels  seized  the  blacks  who  went  along  to 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  99 

help,  and  sent  them  into  slavery,  —  Horace  Greeley 
said  in  his  paper  that  the  Government  would  proba 
bly  do  nothing  about  it. 

What  could  I  do  ?  —  September,  1862. 


BLESSED  ARE   THE  PEACE-MAKERS. 

"D  UT  restore  the  Missouri  Compromise,  and  what 
"^^  then?  We  thereby  restore  the  national  faith, 
the  national  confidence,  the  national  feeling  of 
brotherhood.  We  thereby  reinstate  the  spirit  of. 
concession  and  compromise,  —  that  spirit  which  has 
never  failed  us  in  past  perils,  and  which  may  be 
safely  trusted  for  all  the  future.  The  South  ought 
to  join  in  doing  this.  The  peace  of  the  nation  is  as 
dear  to  them  as  to  us.  In  memories  of  the  past  and 
hopes  of  the  future,  they  share  as  largely  as  we. 
It  would  be,  on  their  part,  a  great  act, — great  in 
its  spirit,  and  great  in  its  effect.  It  would  be  worth 
to  the  nation  a  hundred  years'  purchase  of  peace 
and  prosperity.  And  what  of  sacrifice  would  they 
make?  They  only  surrender  to  us  what  they  gave 
us  for  a  consideration  long,  long  ago ;  what  they 
have  not  now  asked  for,  struggled,  or  cared  for ; 
what  has  been  thrust  upon  them,  not  less  to  their 
own  astonishment  than  to  ours. —  O&obcr,  1854. 


ioo  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

UNION   OR    SLA  VERT. 

TF  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union 
•*•  unless  they  could  at  the  same  time  save  slavery, 
I  do  not  agree  with  them.  .  .  . 

My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and 
not  either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery. 

If  I  could  save  the  Union  without  freeing  any 
slave,  I  would  do  it ;  and,  if  I  could  do  it  by  free 
ing  some  and  leaving  others  alone,  I  would  also 
do  that. 

What  I  do  about  slavery  and  the  colored  race,  I 
do  because  I  believe  it  helps  to  save  the  Union; 
and  what  I  forbear,  I  forbear  because  I  do  not  be 
lieve  it  would  help  to  save  the  Union. 

I  do  not  want  to  issue  a  document  that  the  whole 
world  will  see  must  necessarily  be  inoperative,  like 
the  Pope's  bull  against  the  comet.  —  September, 
1862.  _^ 

FROM   WHENCE   COME  MURDERS? 

TT?ACH  party  WITHIN,  having  numerous  and  de- 
^-^  termined  backers  WITHOUT,  is  it  not  probable 
that  the  contest  will  come  to  blows  and  bloodshed  ? 
Could  there  be  a  more  apt  invention  to  bring  about 
collision  and  violence,  on  the  slavery  question,  than 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  IOI 

this  Nebraska  project  is?  I  do  not  charge,  or  be 
lieve,  that  such  was  intended  by  Congress ;  but  if 
they  had  literally  formed  a  ring,  and  placed  cham 
pions  within  it  to  fight  out  the  controversy,  the  fight 
could  be  no  more  likely  to  come  off  than  it  is.  And, 
if  this  fight  should  begin,  is  it  likely  to  take  a  very 
peaceful,  Union-saving  turn?  Will  not  the  first  drop 
of  blood,  so  shed,  be  the  real  knell  of  the  Union? 
—  Odober,  1854. 


APPEAL    TO    THEIR    OWN  SENSE   OF  JUST 
ICE  AND  HUMAN  STMPATHT. 


are  in  the  United  States  and  Terri 
tories,  including  the  District  of  Columbia, 
433,643  free  blacks.  At  five  hundred  dollars  per 
head,  they  are  worth  over  two  hundred  millions  of 
dollars.  How  comes  this  vast  amount  of  property 
to  be  running  about,  without  owners  ?  We  do  not 
see  free  horses  or  free  cattle  running  at  large. 
How  is  this?  All  these  free  blacks  are  the  descend 
ants  of  slaves,  or  have  been  slaves  themselves  ;  and 
they  would  be  slaves  now,  but  for  SOMETHING 
which  has  operated  on  their  white  owners,  inducing 
them,  at  vast  pecuniary  sacrifices,  to  liberate  them. 
What  is  that  SOMETHING  ?  Is  there  any  mistaking 


102  THE    PRESIDENT  S    WORDS. 

it?  In  all  these  cases,  it  is  your  sense  of  justice 
and  human  sympathy,  continually  telling  you  that 
the  poor  negro  has  some  natural  right  to  himself; 
that  those  who  deny  it,  and  make  mere  merchan 
dise  of  him,  deserve  kickings,  contempt,  and  death. 
And,  now,  why  will  you  ask  us  to  deny  the  hu 
manity  of  the  slave,  and  estimate  him  as  only  the 
equal  of  the  hog?  Why  ask  us  to  do  what  you  will 
not  do  yourselves  ?  Why  ask  us  to  do  for  nothing 
what  two  hundred  millions  of  dollars  could  not  in 
duce  you  to  do? —  Ottober,  1854. 


LET  THE  FATHERS  ANSWER. 

TN  support  of  his  application  of  the  doctrine  of 
•^  self-government,  Senator  Douglas  has  sought  to 
bring  to  his  aid  the  opinions  and  examples  of  our 
Revolutionary  fathers.  I  am  glad  he  has  done  this. 
I  love  the  sentiments  of  those  old-timed  men,  and 
shall  be  most  happy  to  abide  by  their  opinions. 
He  shows  us,  that,  when  it  was  in  contemplation 
for  the  colonies  to  break  off  from  Great  Britain,  and 
set  up  a  new  government  for  themselves,  several  of 
the  States  instructed  their  delegates  to  go  for  the 
measure,  PROVIDED  EACH  STATE  SHOULD  BE  AL 
LOWED  TO  REGULATE  ITS  DOMESTIC  CONCERNS  IN 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  103 

ITS  OWN  WAY.  I  do  not  quote ;  but  this  in  sub 
stance.  This  was  right.  I  see  nothing  objection 
able  in  it.  I  also  think  it  probable  that  it  had  some 
reference  to  the  existence  of  slavery  among  them. 
I  will  not  deny  that  it  had.  But  had  it  any  refer 
ence  to  the  carrying  of  slavery  into  NEW  COUN 
TRIES  ?  That  is  the  question,  and  we  will  let  the 
fathers  themselves  answer  it. —  Odober,  1854. 


THE  STAKE  PLATED  FOR. 

T)UT  it  is  said,  there  now  is  no  law  in  Nebraska 
^"^  on  the  subject  of  slavery,  and  that,  in  such 
case,  taking  a  slave  there  operates  his  freedom. 
That  is  good  book-law,  but  is  not  the  rule  of  actual 
practice.  Wherever  slavery  is,  it  has  been  first  in 
troduced  without  law.  The  oldest  laws  we  find 
concerning  it  are  not  laws  introducing  it,  but  regu 
lating  it  as  an  already  existing  thing.  A  white 
man  takes  his  slave  to  Nebraska  now.  Who  will 
inform  the  negro  that  he  is  free  ?  Who  will  take 
him  before  court  to  test  the  question  of  his  freedom  ? 
In  ignorance  of  his  legal  emancipation,  he  is  kept 
chopping,  splitting,  and  ploughing.  Others  are 
brought,  and  move  on  in  the  same  track.  At  last, 
if  ever  the  time  for  voting  comes  on  the  question  of 


J04  TIIE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

slavery,  the  institution  already,  in  fact,  exists  in  the 
country,  and  cannot  well  be  removed.  The  fact  of 
its  presence,  and  the  difficulty  of  its  removal,  will 
carry  the  vote  in  its  favor.  Keep  it  out  until  a  vote 
is  taken,  and  a  vote  in  favor  of  it  cannot  be  got  in 
any  population  of  forty  thousand  on  earth,  who 
have  been  drawn  together  by  the  ordinary  motives 
of  emigration  and  settlement.  To  get  slaves  into 
the  Territory  simultaneously  with  the  whites,  in  the 
incipient  stages  of  settlement,  is  the  precise  stake 
played  for,  and  won,  in  this  Nebraska  measure.  — 
,  1854. 


HOW  DO   WE  ACCOUNT  FOR  THE  INCREASE 
OF  THE   COLORED  POPULATION? 

\  NOTHER  lullaby  argument  is,  that  taking 
slaves  to  new  countries  does  not  increase 
their  number,  —  does  not  make  any  one  slave  who 
otherwise  would  be  free.  There  is  some  truth  in 
this,  and  I  am  glad  of  it ;  but  it  is  not  wholly  true. 
The  African  slave-trade  is  not  yet  effectually  sup 
pressed  ;  and  if  we  make  a  reasonable  deduction  for 
the  white  people  among  us  who  are  foreigners,  and 
the  descendants  of  foreigners,  arriving  here  since 
1808,  we  shall  find  the  increase  of  the  black  popu- 


SLAVERY   AND   ANTISLAVERY.  1 05 

lation  outrunning  that  of  the  white,  to  an  extent 
unaccountable,  except  by  supposing  that  some  of 
them,  too,  have  been  coming  from  Africa.  If  this 
be  so,  the  opening  of  new  countries  to  the  institu 
tion  increases  the  demand  for,  and  augments  the 
price  of  slaves,  and  so  does,  in  fact,  make  slaves  of 
freemen,  by  causing  them  to  be  brought  from  Africa 
and  sold  into  bondage. —  Ottober,  1854. 


CALIFORNIA  AND   SL AVERT. 

TN  the  fall  of  1848,  the  gold  mines  were  discov- 
ered  in  California.  This  attracted  people  to  it 
with  unprecedented  rapidity ;  so  that  on  or  soon 
after  the  meeting  of  the  new  Congress  in  December, 
1849,  she  already  had  a  population  of  nearly  a  hun 
dred  thousand ;  had  called  a  convention ;  formed 
a  State  Constitution,  excluding  slavery ;  and  was 
knocking  for  admission  into  the  Union.  The  Pro 
viso  men,  of  course,  were  for  letting  her  in  ;  but  the 
nate,  always  true  to  the  other  side,  would  not 
consent  to  her  admission.  And  there  California 
stood,  kept  out  of  the  Union,  because  she  would  not 
let  slavery  into  her  borders.  Under  all  the  circum 
stances,  perhaps  this  was  not  wrong.  There  were 
other  points  of  dispute  connected  with  the  general 
5* 


io6 


question  of  slavery,  which  equally  needed  adjust 
ment.  The  South  clamored  for  a  more  efficient 
fugitive-slave  law.  The  North  clamored  for  the 
abolition  of  a  peculiar  species  of  slave-trade  in  the 
District  of  Columbia  ;  in  connection  with  which,  in 
view  from  the  windows  of  the  Capitol,  a  sort  of 
negro  livery-stable,  where  droves  of  negroes  were 
collected,  temporarily  kept,  and  finally  taken  to 
Southern  markets,  precisely  like  droves  of  horses, 
had  been  openly  maintained  for  fifty  years.  — 
Odober,  1854. 

UTAH  AND   NEW  MEXICO,    AND    THE 
SL AVERT  QUESTION. 

T  TTAH  and  New  Mexico  needed  territorial  gov- 
^•^  ernments ;  and  whether  slavery  should  or 
should  not  be  prohibited  within  them  was  another 
question.  The  indefinite  western  boundary  of 
Texas  was  to  be  settled.  She  was  a  Slave  State ; 
and  consequently  the  farther  west  the  slavery  men 
could  push  her  boundary,  the  more  slave  country 
they  secured  ;  and  the  farther  east  the  slavery  oppo 
nents  could  thrust  the  boundary  back,  the  less  slave 
ground  was  secured.  Thus  this  was  just  as  clearly 
a  slavery  question  as  any  of  the  others.  —  Oftobcr^ 
1854. 


SLAVERY    AND    ANTISLAVERY.  107 


RIGHT  FIRST,  ENFORCEMENT  AFTER. 

T  THINK  the  authors  of  that  notable  instrument 
(the  Declaration  of  Independence)  intended 
to  include  all  men ;  but  they  did  not  intend  to 
declare  all  men  equal  in  all  respeds.  They  did 
not  mean  to  say  all  were  equal  in  color,  size,  intel 
lect,  moral  developments,  or  social  capacity.  *  They 
defined,  with  tolerable  distinctness,  in  what  respects 
they  did  consider  all  men  created  equal,  —  equal 
with  "  certain  inalienable  rights,  among  which  are 
life,  liberty,  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness."  This 
they  said,  and  this  they  meant.  They  did  not  mean 
to  assert  the  obvious  untruth,  that  all  were  then 
actually  enjoying  that  equality,  nor  yet  that  they 
were  about  to  confer  it  immediately  upon  them. 
In  fact,  they  had  no  power  to  confer  such  a  boon. 
They  meant  simply  to  declare  the  right,  so  that  the 
enforcement  of  it  might  follow  as  fast  as  circum 
stances  should  permit. 

They  meant  to  set  up  a  standard  maxim  for  free 
soc  ety,  which  should  be  familiar  to  all,  and  revered 
by  all ;  constantly  looked  to,  constantly  labored 
for ;  and,  even  though  never  perfectly  attained, 
constantly  approximated,  and  thereby  constantly 


io8  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

spreading  and  deepening  its  influence,  and  aug 
menting  the  happiness  and  value  of  life  to  all 
people  of  all  colors  everywhere. 


NO  FEAR    OF  AMALGAMATION  IN  A    FREE 
STATE. 

TT)  UT  Judge  Douglas  is  especially  horrified  at  the 
•*-^  thought  of  the  mixing  blood  by  the  white  and 
black  races.  Agreed  for  once  —  a  thousand  times 
agreed.  There  are  white  men  enough  to  marry  all 
the  white  women,  and  black  men  enough  to  marry 
all  the  black  women ;  and  so  let  them  be  married. 
On  this  point  we  fully  agree  with  the  Judge  ;  and 
when  he  shall  show  that  his  policy  is  better  adapted 
to  prevent  amalgamation  than  ours,  we  shall  drop 
ours,  and  adopt  this.  Let  us  see.  In  1850  there 
were  in  the  United  States  405,751  mulattoes.  Very 
few  of  these  are  the  offspring  of  whites  and  free 
blacks ;  nearly  all  have  sprung  from  black  slaves 
and  white  masters.  A  separation  of  the  races  is  the 
only  perfect  preventive  of  amalgamation  ;  but,  as  an 
immediate  separation  is  impossible,  the  next  best 
thing  is  to  keep  them  apart  where  they  are  not 
already  together.  If  white  and  black  people  never 
get  together  in  Kansas,  they  will  never  mix  blood 


SLAVERY   AND   ANTISLAVERY.  109 

in  Kansas.  That  is  at  least  one  self-evident  truth. 
A  few  free  colored  persons  may  get  into  the  Free 
States  in  any  event;  but  their  number  is  too 
insignificant  to  amount  to  much  in  the  way  of  mix 
ing  blood. 

SLA  VERT  THE  SOURCE   OF  AMALGAMA 
TION. 

TN  1850,  there  were  in  the  Free  States  56,649 
•*•  mulattoes  ;  but  for  the  most  part  they  were  not 
born  there,  —  they  came  from  the  Slave  States, 
ready  made  up.  In  the  same  year,  the  Slave 
States  had  348,874  mulattoes,  all  of  home  produc 
tion.  The  proportion  of  free  mulattoes  to  free 
blacks — the  only  colored  classes  in  the  Free  States 
—  is  much  greater  in  the  Slave  than  in  the  Free 
States.  It  is  worthy  of  note,  too,  that  among  the 
Free  States  those  which  make  the  colored  man 
the  nearest  equal  to  the  white,  have  proportiona- 
bly  the  fewest  mulattoes,  the  least  of  amalgama 
tion.  In  New  Hampshire,  the  State  which  goes 
farthest  toward  equality  between  the  races,  there 
are  just  one  hundred  and  eighty-four  mulattoes ; 
while  there  are  in  Virginia,  —  how  many  do  you 
think?  —  79,775?  being  23,126  more  than  in  all  the 
Free  States  together. 


110  THE    PRESIDENTS    WORDS. 

These  statistics  show  that  slavery  is  the  greatest 
source  of  amalgamation ;  and,  next  to  it,  not  the 
elevation,  but  the  degradation,  of  free  blacks.  Yet 
Judge  Douglas  dreads  the  slightest  restraints  on 
the  spread  of  slavery,  and  the  slightest  human 
recognition  of  the  negro,  as  tending  horribly  to 
amalgamation. 

THE    VOICE   OF  THE  MASS   OF  MANKIND 
IS  AGAINST  IT. 

OENATOR  DOUGLAS  remarked,  in  substance, 
^  that  he  had  always  considered  this  Government 
was  made  for  the  white  people,  and  not  for  the 
negroes.  Why,  in  point  of  mere  fact,  I  think  so  too. 
But  in  this  remark  of  the  Judge  there  is  a  signifi 
cance,  which  I  think  is  the  key  to  the  great  mistake 
(if  there  is  any  such  mistake)  which  he  has  made  in 
this  Nebraska  measure.  It  shows  that  the  Judge 
has  no  very  vivid  impression  that  the  negro  is  a 
human;  and  consequently  has  no  idea  that  there 
can  be  any  moral  question  in  legislating  about  him. 
In  his  view,  the  question  of  whether  a  new  country 
shall  be  slave  or  free  is  a  matter  of  as  utter  indif 
ference,  as  it  is  whether  his  neighbor  shall  plant  his 
farm  with  tobacco,  or  stock  it  with  horned  cattle. 
Now,  whether  this  view  is  right  or  wrong,  it  is  very 


SLAVERY   AND    ANTISLAVERY.  HI 

certain  that  the  great  mass  of  mankind  take  a  totally 
different  view.  They  consider  slavery  a  great  moral 
wrong ;  and  their  feeling  against  it  is  not  evanescent, 
but  eternal.  It  lies  at  the  very  foundation  of  their 
sense  of  justice,  and  it  cannot  be  trifled  with.  It  is 
a  great  and  durable  element  of  popular  action,  and 
I  think  no  statesman  can  safely  disregard  it. 


"PRECEDENTS"  AND  "AUTHORITIES." 

"JUDICIAL  decisions  have  two  uses :  First,  To 
**  absolutely  determine  the  case  decided ;  and, 
Secondly,  To  indicate  to  the  public  how  other  sim 
ilar  cases  will  be  decided  when  they  arise.  For  the 
latter  use,  they  are  called  "  precedents  "  and  "  au 
thorities." 

We  believe  as  much  as  Judge  Douglas  (perhaps 
more)  in  obedience  to,  and  respect  for,  the  judicial 
department  of  government.  We  think  its  decisions 
on  Constitutional  questions,  when  fully  settled, 
should  control,  not  only  the  particular  cases  decided, 
but  the  general  policy  of  the  country,  subject  to  be 
disturbed  only  by  amendments  of  the  Constitution  as 
provided  in  that  instrument  itself.  More  than  this 
would  be  revolution.  But  we  think  the  Dred-Scott 


H2  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

decision  is  erroneous.  We  know  the  court  that 
made  it  has  often  overruled  its  own  decisions,  and 
we  shall  do  what  we  can  to  have  it  overrule  this. 
We  offer  no  resistance  to  it. 


SUFFICIENT  UNTO   THE  DAT  IS   THE 
EVIL    THEREOF. 

T  MEANT  not  to  resist  the  admission  of  Utah  and 
New  Mexico,  even  should  they  ask  to  come  in 
as  Slave  States.  I  meant  nothing  about  additional 
territories,  because,  as  I  understood,  we  then  had 
no  territory  whose  character  as  to  slavery  was  not 
already  settled.  As  to  Nebraska,  I  regarded  its 
character  as  being  fixed,  by  the  Missouri  Compro 
mise,  for  thirty  years ;  as  unalterably  fixed  as  that 
of  my  own  home  in  Illinois.  As  to  new  acquisi 
tions,  I  said,  "  Sufficient  unto  the  day  is  the  evil 
thereof."  When  we  make  new  acquisitions,  we 
will,  as  heretofore,  try  to  manage  them  somehow. 
That  is  my  answer  ;  that  is  what  I  meant  and  said  ; 
and  I  appeal  to  the  people  to  say,  each  for  himself, 
whether  that  was  not  also  the  universal  meaning 
of  the  Free  States.—  October,  1854. 


SLAVERY    AND    ANTISLAVERY.  113 

"POPULAR  SOVEREIGNTY"  RETROGRADE. 

T  ASK  attention  to  the  fact,  that,  in  a  pre-eminent 
degree,  these  popular  sovereigns  are  at  this 
work ;  blowing  out  the  moral  lights  around  us ; 
teaching  that  the  negro  is  no  longer  a  man,  but  a 
brute  ;  that  the  Declaration  has  nothing  to  do  with 
him  ;  that  he  ranks  with  the  crocodile  and  the  rep 
tile  ;  that  man,  with  body  and  soul,  is  a  matter  of 
dollars  and  cents.  I  suggest  to  this  portion  of  the 
Ohio  Republicans,  or  Democrats,  if  there  be  any 
present,  the  serious  consideration  of  this  fact,  that 
there  is  now  going  on  among  you  a  steady  process 
of  debauching  public  opinion  on  this  subject. — 
September,  1859. 

CLA  Y  AND    WEBSTER. 

I^INALLY,  the  Judge  invokes  against  me  the 
memory  of  Clay  and  of  Webster.  They  were 
great  men,  and  men  of  great  deeds.  But  where 
have  I  assailed  them?  For  what  is  it  that  their 
life-long  enemy  shall  now  make  profit  by  assuming 
to  defend  them  against  me,  their  life-long  friend? 
I  go  against  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise  : 
did  they  ever  go  for  it  ?  They  went  for  the  Com- 


ii4  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

promises  of  1850:  did  I  ever  go  against  them? 
They  were  greatly  devoted  to  the  Union :  to  the 
small  measure  of  my  ability,  was  I  ever  less  so? 
Clay  and  Webster  were  dead  before  this  question 
arose :  by  what  authority  shall  our  senator  say  they 
\vould  espouse  his  side  of  it,  if  alive?  Mr.  Clay 
was  the  leading  spirit  in  making  the  Missouri 
Compromise  :  is  it  very  credible,  that,  if  now  alive, 
he  would  take  the  lead  in  the  breaking  of  it?  The 
truth  is,  that  some  support  from  Whigs  is  now  a 
necessity  with  the  Judge  ;  and  for  this  it  is  that  the 
names  of  Clay  and  Webster  are  now  invoked.  His 
old  friends  have  deserted  him  in  such  numbers  as 
to  leave  too  few  to  live  by.  He  came  to  his  own, 
and  his  own  received  him  not ;  and,  lo !  he  turns 
unto  the  Gentiles. 


FAITH. 


FAITH. 


FAITH    IN    GOD. FAITH    IN    THE    PEOPLE. 


HOPE. 

T  AM  leaving  you  on  an  errand  of  national  im- 
portance,  attended,  as  you  are  aware,  with  con 
siderable  difficulties.  Let  us  believe,  as  some  poet 
has  expressed  it,  "  Behind  the  cloud  the  sun  is  still 
shining." 

JUSTICE    OF    THE   PEOPLE. 

"\  T  7HY  should  there  not  be  a  patient  confidence 
in  the  ultimate  justice  of  the  people?  Is 
there  any  better  or  equal  hope  in  the  world  ?  In 
our  present  differences,  is  either  party  without  faith 
of  being  in  the  right?  If  the  Almighty  Ruler  of 
nations,  with  his  eternal  truth  and  justice,  be  on 
your  side  of  the  North,  or  on  yours  of  the  South, 
that  truth  and  justice  will  surely  prevail  by  the 
judgment  of  this  great  tribunal  of  the  American 
people.  —  March,  1861 . 

[117] 


n8  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

GOD'S    WILL. 

not  misunderstand  me.  ...  I  have  not  de- 
cided  against  a  proclamation  of  liberty  to  the 
slaves,  but  hold  the  matter  under  advisement.  And 
I  can  assure  you  that  the  subject  is  on  my  mind,  by 
day  and  night,  more  than  any  other.  Whatever 
shall  appear  to  be  God's  will,  I  will  do. 

FAITH   IN   OUR    FUTURE. 

'"T^HERE  are  already  among  us  those,  who,  if  the 
Union  be  preserved,  will  live  to  see  it  contain 
two  hundred  and  fifty  millions  of  population.  The 
straggle  of  to-day  is  not  altogether  for  to-day :  it  is 
for  a  vast  future  also. 


FAITH  IN   GOD. 

TF  we  have  patience,  if  we  restrain  ourselves,  if 
we  allow  ourselves  not  to  run  off  in  a  passion, 
I  still  have  confidence  that  the  Almighty,  the  Maker 
of  the  universe,  will,  through  the  instrumentality  of 
this  great  and  intelligent  people,  bring  us  through 
this  as  he  has  through  all  the  other  difficulties  of 
Our  country. — February,  1861. 


FAITH. 


TOILING    UP. 

"VTO  men  living  are  more  worthy  to  be  trusted 
than  those  who  toil  up  from  poverty  ;   none 
less  inclined  to  take  or  touch  aught  which  they  have 
not  honestly  earned.  —  December,  1861. 

GOD'S    SUPPORT    OF    THE    PEOPLE. 

TT  is  a  consoling  circumstance,  that,  when  we  look 
out,  there  is  nothing  that  really  hurts  anybody. 
.  .  .  And  from  it  we  may  conclude,  that  all  we  want 
is  time,  patience,  and  a  reliance  on  that  God  who 
has  never  forsaken  this  people.  —  Idem. 


THE   PEOPLE    IN  MASS. 

~\  T  7HILE  I  do  not  expect,  upon  this  occasion,  or 
until  I  get  to  Washington,  to  attempt  any 
lengthy  speech,  I  will  only  say,  to  the  salvation  of 
the  Union  there  needs  but  one  single  thing,  —  the 
hearts  of  a  people  like  yours.  The  people  when 
they  rise  in  mass  in  behalf  of  the  Union  and  the 
liberties  of  their  country,  truly  may  it  be  said, 

"  THE  GATES  OF  HELL  CANNOT  PREVAIL  AGAINST 

THEM."  —  February,  1861. 


I2O  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 


I 


GOD    AND    THE    PEOPLE. 

CANNOT  but  know,  what  you  all  know,  that, 
without  a  name,  perhaps  without  a  reason  why 
I  should  have  a  name,  there  has  fallen  upon  me  a 
task  such  as  did  not  rest  even  upon  the  Father  of 
his  Country  ;  and,  so  feeling,  I  cannot  but  turn  and 
look  for  that  support  without  which  it  will  be  im 
possible  to  perform  that  great  task.  I  turn,  then, 
and  look  to  the  great  American  people,  and  to  that 
God  who  has  never  forsaken  them.  —  February, 
1861. 

GETTYSBURG. 

•  .^OURSCORE  and  seven  years  ago,  our  fathers 
brought  forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation, 
conceived  in  Liberty,  and  dedicated  to  the  proposi 
tion  that  all  men  are  created  equal.  Now  we  are 
engaged  in  a  great  civil  war,-  testing  whether  that 
nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  and  so  dedicated, 
can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a  great  battle 
field  of  that  war.  We  are  met  to  dedicate  a  por 
tion  of  it  as  the  final  resting-place  of  those  who  here 
gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might  live.  It  is 
altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  do 
this. 


FAITH.  121 

But,  in  a  larger  sense,  we  cannot  dedicate,  we 
cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground. 
The  brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled 
here,  have  consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to 
add  or  detract.  The  world  will  little  note,  nor 
long  remember,  what  we  say  here  ;  but  it  can 
never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It  is  for  us,  the 
living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the  unfinished 
work  that  they  have  thus  far  so  nobly  carried  on. 
It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here  dedicated  to  the  great 
task  remaining  before  us,  —  that  from  these  honored 
dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to  the  cause  for 
which  they  here  gave  the  last  full  measure  of  devo 
tion  ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  the  dead 
shall  not  have  died  in  vain ;  that  the  nation  shall, 
under  God,  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom  ;  and  that 
the  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and 
for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth.  — 
November,  1863. 

THE   MAJOR  ITT  RULES. 

r  I  ^HE  only  dispute  on  both  sides  is,  "  What  are 

•*-      their   rights?"     If  the    majority   should   not 

rule,  who  should  be  the  judge?    Where  is  such  a 

judge  to  be  found  ?    We  should  all  be  bound  by  the 

6 


122  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

majority  of  the  American  people :  if  not,  then  the 
minority  must  control.  Would  that  be  right? 
Would  it  be  just  or  generous?  Assuredly  not.  I 
reiterate  that  the  majority  should  rule.  If  I  adopt 
a  wrong  policy,  the  opportunity  for  condemnation 
will  occur  in  four  years'  time.  Then  I  can  be 
turned  out,  and  a  better  man,  with  better  views,  put 
in  my  place.  — February,  1861. 


THE     WOMEN. 

T  AM  not  accustomed  to  the  use  of  language  of 
eulogy ;  I  have  never  studied  the  art  of  paying 
compliments  to  women  ;  but  I  must  say,  that,  if  all 
that  has  been  said  by  orators  and  poets  since  the 
creation  of  the  world  in  praise  of  women  were 
applied  to  the  women  of  America,  it  would  not  do 
them  justice  for  their  conduct  during  this  war.  I 
will  close  by  saying,  God  bless  the  women  of 
America !  —  March,  1864. 


THE   PEOPLE    THE    ONLT  MASTERS. 

T  CONSIDER  that,  in  view  of  the  Constitution 
"^  and  the  laws,  the  Union  is  unbroken  ;  and,  to 
the  extent  of  my  ability,  I  shall  take  care,  as  the 


FAITH.  123 

Constitution  itself  expressly  enjoins  upon  me,  that 
the  laws  of  the  Union  be  faithfully  executed  in  all 
the  States.  Doing  this  I  deem  to  be  only  a  simple 
duty  on  my  part ;  and  I  shall  perform  it,  so  far  as 
practicable,  unless  my  rightful  masters,  the  Ameri 
can  people,  shall  withhold  the  requisite  means,  or, 
in  some  authoritative  manner,  direct  the  contrary. 
—  March,  1861. 


I 


SUPPORT    OF    THE    PEOPLE. 

DO  not  say,  that,  in  the  recent  election,  the  peo 
ple  did  the  wisest  thing  that  could  have  been 
done  ;  indeed,  I  do  not  think  they  did :  but  I  do  say, 
that,  in  accepting  the  great  trust  committed  to  me,  I 
must  rely  upon  you,  upon  the  people  of  the  whole 
country  for  their  support ;  and,  with  their  sustaining 
aid,  even  I,  humble  as  I  am,  cannot  fail  to  carry 
the  ship  of  State  safely  through  the  storm.  — Feb 
ruary,  1 86 1. 

STAND    BY   THE    HELM. 

r  I  ^HERE  is  nothing  that  could  ever  bring  me  to 

willingly  consent  to  the  destruction   of  this 

Union,  under  which,  not  only  the  great  commercial 

city  of  New  York,  but  the  whole  country,  acquired 


I24 

its  greatness,  except  it  be  the  purpose  for  which  the 
Union  itself  was  formed.  I  understand  the  ship  to 
be  made  for  the  carrying  and  the  preservation  of 
the  cargo ;  and,  so  long  as  the  ship  can  be  saved 
with  the  cargo,  it  should  never  be  abandoned,  unless 
it  fails  the  possibility  of  its  preservation,  and  shall 
cease  to  exist,  except  at  the  risk  of  throwing  over 
board  both  freight  and  passengers.  So  long,  then, 
as  it  is  possible  that  the  prosperity  and  the  liberties 
of  the  people  be  preserved  in  this  Union,  it  shall  be 
my  purpose,  at  all  times,  to  use  all  my  powers  to 
aid  in  its  perpetuation. 


HIS    OATH    WAS   PARAMOUNT. 

T  AM  naturally  antislavery.  If  slavery  is  not 
wrong,  nothing  is  wrong.  I  cannot  remember 
when  I  did  not  see,  think,  and  feel,  that  it  was 
wrong ;  and  yet  I  have  never  understood  that  the 
Presidency  conferred  upon  me  an  unrestricted 
right  to  ac~l  officially  upon  this  judgment  and  feel 
ing.  It  was  in  the  oath  I  took,  that  I  would,  to  the 
best  of  my  ability,  preserve,  protect,  and  defend  the 
Constitution  of  the  United  States.  I  could  not  take 
the  office  without  taking  the  oath ;  nor  was  it  my 


FAITH.  125 

view  that  I  might  take  an  oath  to  get  power,  and 
break  the  oath  in  using  the  power.  I  understood, 
too,  that,  in  ordinary  civil  administration,  this  oath 
even  forbade  me  to  practically  indulge  my  primary 
abstract  judgment  on  the  moral  question  of  slavery. 
I  had  publicly  declared  this  many  times,  and  in 
many  ways ;  and  I  aver,  that,  to  this  day,  I  have 
done  no  official  act  in  mere  deference  to  my  abstract 
judgment  and  feeling  on  slavery.  I  did  understand, 
however,  that  my  oath,  to  preserve  the  Constitution 
to  the  best  of  my  ability,  imposed  upon  me  the  duty 
of  preserving,  by  every  indispensable  means,  that 
Government,  that  nation,  of  which  that  Constitution 
was  the  organic  law. 


OUR  FATHER    WILL  DECIDE. 

T  CAN  only  say  in  this  case,  as  in  so  many  oth- 
ers,  that  I  am  profoundly  grateful  for  the  re 
spect,  given  in  every  variety  of  form  which  it  can 
be  given,  from  the  religious  bodies  of  the  country. 
I  saw,  upon  taking  my  position  here,  I  was  going 
to  have  an  administration,  if  an  administration  at 
all,  of  extraordinary  difficulty. 

It  was,  without   exception,  a  time  of  the  great 
est  difficulty  this  country  ever  saw.     I  was  early 


126  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

brought  to  a  lively  reflection,  that  nothing  would 
succeed,  without  direct  assistance  of  the  Almighty. 
I  have  often  wished  that  I  was  a  more  devout  man 
than  I  am :  nevertheless,  amid  the  greatest  diffi 
culties  of  my  administration,  when  I  could  not  see 
any  other  resort,  I  would  place  my  whole  reliance 
in  God,  knowing  all  would  go  well,  and  that  he 
would  decide  for  the  right. 

I  thank  you,  gentlemen,  in  the  name  of  the 
religious  bodies  which  you  represent,  and  in  the 
name  of  our  common  Father,  for  this  expression  of 
respect.  I  cannot  say  more. 


INTERNAL    IMPROVEMENTS. 


INTERNAL   IMPROVEMENTS. 


OBNOXIOUS  INEQUALITr. 

00  far  as  they  involve  "obnoxious  inequality," 
^    this  Capitol  is  built  at  the  public  expense,  for 
the  public  benefit ;  but  does  any  one  doubt,  that  it 
is  of  some  peculiar  advantage  to  the  property-hold 
ers  and  business  people  of  Washington?     Shall  we 
remove  it  for  this  reason?     And,  if  so,  where  shall 
we  set  it  down,  and  be  free  from  the   difficulty? 
To  make  sure  of  our  object,  shall  we  locate  it  no 
where?  and   have    Congress  hereafter   to  hold    its 
sessions,  as  the  loafer  lodged,  "  in  spots  about"  ?  — 
June,  1848. 

TONNAGE  DUTIES. 

"  1  .^NOUGH  may  be  done  by  means  of  tonnage 

duties."     Now,  I   suppose,  this  manner  of 

tonnage  duties  is  well  enough  in  its  own  sphere.  .  .  . 

1  know  very  little,  or  nothing  at  all,  of  the  practical 
matter  of  levying   and   collecting  tonnage  duties; 
but,  I  suppose,  one  of  its  principles  must  be  to  lay 

6*  i  [129] 


130  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

a  duty,  for  the  improvement  of  any  particular  har 
bor,  upon  the  tonnage  coming  into  that  harbor. 
To  do  otherwise,  —  to  colledl  money  in  one  harbor 
to  be  expended  on  improvements  in  another, — 
would  be  an  extremely  aggravated  form  of  that 
44  inequality  "  which  the  President  so  much  depre 
cates.  If  I  be  right  in  this,  how  could  we  make 
any  entirely  new  improvements  by  means  of  ton 
nage  duties?  How  make  a  road,  a  canal,  or  clear 
a  greatly  obstructed  river  ?  The  idea  that  we  could, 
involves  the  same  absurdity  of  the  Irish  bull  about 
the  new  boots :  "  I  shall  niver  get  'cm  on,"  says 
Patrick,  u  till  I  wear  'em  a  day  or  two,  and  stretch 
'em  a  little."  —  June,  1848. 


MR.  FOLK'S  FIVE  PROPOSITIONS. 

r  I  ^IIE  prevailing  Democratic  errors  ori  the  sub- 

ject,  Mr.  Lincoln  stated  as   follows  :  — 
That   internal   improvements   ought   not    to    be 
made  by  the  General  Government,  — 

1.  Because  they  would  overwhelm  the  Treasury. 

2.  Because,  while  their  burdens  would  be  gen 
eral,   their   benefits  would   be   local  and  partial^ 
involving  an  obnoxious  inequality ;    and,  — 

3.  Because  they  would  be  unconstitutional. 


INTERNAL   IMPROVEMENTS.  131 

4.  Because  the  States  may  do  enough  by  the  levy 
and  collection  of  tonnage  duties  ;  or,  if  not,  — 

5.  That  the  Constitution  may  be  amended. 

The  sum  of  these  positions  is,  Do  nothing  at  all, 
lest  you  do  something  -wrong. —  June,  1848. 


AMENDING   THE  CONSTITUTION. 

A  S  a  general  rule,  I  think  we  would  do  much 
T^  better  to  let  it  alone.  No  slight  occasion 
should  tempt  us  to  touch  it.  Better  not  take  the 
first  step  which  may  lead  to  a  habit  of  altering  it. 
Better  habituate  ourselves  to  think  of  it  as  unalter 
able.  It  can  scarcely  be  made  better  than  it  is.  ... 
No,  sir:  let  it  stand  as  it  is.  New  hands  have 
never  touched  it.  The  men  who  made  it  have  done 
their  work,  and  have  passed  away.  Who  shall  im 
prove  on  what  they  did? —  June,  1848. 


ABSTRACTIONS. 

T  MAKE  no  special  allusion  to  the  present  Presi- 
dent  when  I  say,  there  are  few  stronger  cases  in 
the  world  of  "  burden  to  the  many  and  benefit  to 
the  few,"  of  "  inequality,"  than  the  Presidency  itself 
is  thought  by  some  to  be.  An  honest  laborer  digs 


132  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

coal  at  about  seventy  cents  a  day,  while  the  Presi 
dent  digs  abstractions  at  about  seventy  dollars  a 
day.  The  coal  is  clearly  worth  more  than  the  ab 
stractions,  and  yet  what  a  monstrous  inequality  in 
the  prices !  Does  the  President,  for  this  reason, 
propose  to  abolish  the  Presidency?  He  does  not, 
and  he  ought  not.  —  June,  1848. 


HE  THAT  OBSERVETH  THE  WIND  SHALL 
NOT  SOW. 


man  is  offended  because  a  road  passes  over 
his  land,  and  another  is  offended  because  it 
does  not  pass  over  his.  One  is  dissatisfied  because 
the  bridge,  for  which  he  is  taxed,  crosses  the  river 
on  a  different  road  from  that  which  leads  from  his 
house  to  town  ;  another  cannot  bear  that  the  county 
should  get  in  debt  for  these  same  roads  and  bridges  ; 
while  not  a  few  struggle  hard  to  have  roads  located 
over  their  lands,  and  then  stoutly  refuse  to  let  them 
be  opened,  until  they  are  first  paid  the  damages. 
Even  between  the  different  wards  and  streets  of 
towns  and  cities,  we  find  this  same  wrangling  and 
difficulty.  Now,  these  are  no  other  than  the  very 
difficulties  against  which,  and  out  of  which,  the 
President  constructs  his  objections  of  "  inequality," 


INTERNAL    IMPROVEMENTS.  133 

"  speculation,"  and  "  crushing  the  treasury."  There 
is  but  a  single  alternative  about  them  :  they  are  suf- 
jicicnt,  or  they  are  not.  If  sufficient,  they  are 
sufficient  out  of  Congress  as  well  as  in  it ;  and  there 
is  the  end.  We  must  reject  them  as  insufficient,  or 
lie  down  and  do  nothing  by  any  authority.  Then, 
difficulty  though  there  be,  let  us  meet  and  over 
come  it. 

"Attempt  the  end,  and  never  stand  to  doubt; 
Nothing  so  hard  but  search  will  find  it  out." 

June,  1848. 


HIS   MITE. 

THVETERMINE  that  the  thing  can  and  shall  be 
done,  and  then  we  shall  find  the  way.  The 
tendency  to  undue  expansion  is  unquestionably  the 
chief  difficulty.  How  to  do  something^  and  still 
not  to  do  too  much,  is  the  desideratum.  Let  each 
contribute  his  mite  in  the  way  of  suggestion.  The 
late  Silas  Wright,  in  a  letter  to  the  Chicago  Con 
vention,  contributed  his,  which  was  worth  some 
thing  ;  and  I  now  contribute  mine,  which  may  be 
worth  nothing.  At  all  events,  it  will  mislead 
nobody,  and  therefore  will  do  no  harm.  —  June, 
1848. 


134  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 


LOCAL  IMPROVEMENTS  FOR  THE  GENERAL 
GOOD. 

TF  the  nation  refuse  to  make  improvements  of  the 
more  general  kind,  because  their  benefits  may 
be  somewhat  local,  a  State  may,  for  the  same  rea 
son,  refuse  to  make  an  improvement  of  a  local  kind, 
because  its  benefits  may  be  somewhat  general.  A 
State  may  well  say  to  the  nation,  "  If  you  will  do 
nothing  for  me,  I  will  do  nothing  for  you."  Thus 
it  is  seen,  that,  if  this  argument  of  "  inequality"  is 
sufficient  anywhere,  it  is  sufficient  everywhere,  and 
puts  an  end  to  improvements  altogether.  —  June, 
1848. 

ILLINOIS  AND  MICHIGAN  CANAL. 

"T^TOTHING  is  so  local  as  not  to  be  of  some  gen 
eral  benefit.  Take,  for  instance,  the  Illinois 
and  Michigan  Canal.  Considered  apart  from  its 
effects,  it  is  perfectly  local.  Every  inch  of  it  is 
within  the  State  of  Illinois.  That  canal  was  first 
opened  for  business  last  April.  In  a  very  few  days 
we  were  all  gratified  to  learn,  among  other  things, 
that  sugar  had  been  carried  from  New  Orleans, 
through  the  canal,  to  Buffalo  in  New  York.  This 
sugar  took  this  route,  doubtless,  because  it  was 


INTERNAL    IMPROVEMENTS.  13^ 

cheaper  than  the  old  route.  Supposing  the  benefit 
in  the  reduction  of  the  cost  of  carriage  to  be  shared 
between  seller  and  buyer,  the  result  is,  that  the 
New-Orleans  merchant  sold  his  sugar  a  little 
dearer,  and  the  people  of  Buffalo  sweetened  their 
coffee  a  little  cheaper,  than  before ;  a  benefit  re 
sulting  from  the  canal,  not  to  Illinois,  where  the 
canal  /y,  but  to  Louisiana  and  New  York,  where  it 
is  not.  In  other  transactions  Illinois  will,  of  course, 
have  her  share,  and  perhaps  the  larger  share  too,  in 
the  benefits  of  the  canal ;  but  the  instance  of  the 
sugar  clearly  shows,  that  the  benefits  of  an  improve 
ment  are  by  no  means  confined  to  the  particular 
locality  of  the  improvement  itself.  —  June,  1848. 


FEW  THINGS  WHOLLY  EVIL. 
r  I  ^HE  true  rule,  in  determining  to  embrace  or 
rejec"l  any  thing,  is  not  whether  it  have  any 
evil  in  it,  but  whether  it  have  more  of  evil  than  of 
good.  There  are  few  things  wholly  evil  or  wholly 
good.  Almost  every  thing,  especially  of  govern 
mental  policy,  is  an  inseparable  compound  of  the 
two ;  so  that  our  best  judgment  of  the  preponder 
ance  between  them  is  continually  demanded.  On 
this  principle,  the  President,  his  friends,  and  the 


136  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

world  generally,  act  on  most  subjects.  Why  not 
apply  it,  then,  upon  this  question?  Why,  as  to  im 
provements,  magnify  the  evil,  and  stoutly  refuse  to 
see  2cs\y good  in  them?  —  June,  1848. 


THE  DIFFERENCE  BETWEEN  "APPLIED 
FOR"  AND  "  GRANTED:' 

r  I  ^HE  President  tells  us,  that,  at  a  certain  point 
of  our  history,  more  than  two  hundred  mil 
lions  of  dollars  had  been  applied  for,  to  make 
improvements ;  and  this  he  does  to  prove  that  the 
Treasury  would  be  overwhelmed  by  such  a  system. 
Why  did  he  not  tell  us  how  much  was  granted? 
Would  not  that  have  been  better  evidence?  Let  us 
turn  to  it,  and  see  what  it  proves.  In  the  message, 
the  President  tells  us  that  "  during  the  four  succeed 
ing  years,  embraced  by  the  administration  of  Presi 
dent  Adams,  the  power,  not  only  to  appropriate 
money,  but  to  apply  it,  under  the  direction  and 
authority  of  the  General  Government,  as  well  to 
the  construction  of  roads  as  to  the  improvement  of 
harbors  and  rivers,  was  fully  asserted  and  exer 
cised." 

This,  then,  was  the  period  of  greatest  enormity. 
These,  if  any,  must  have  been  the  days  of  the  two 


INTERNAL    IMPROVEMENTS.  137 

hundred  millions.  And  how  much  do  you  suppose 
was  really  expended  for  improvements  during  that 
four  years?  Two  hundred  millions?  One  hundred? 
Fifty?  Ten?  Five?  No,  sir:  less  than  two  mil 
lions.  As  shown  by  authentic  documents,  the  ex 
penditures  on  improvements,  during  1825,  1826, 
1827,  and  1828,  amounted  to  $1,879,627.01.  These 
four  years  were  the  period  of  Mr.  Adams's  adminis 
tration,  nearly  and  substantially.  This  fact  shows, 
that,  when  the  power  to  make  improvements  "  was 
fully  asserted  and  exercised,"  the  Congress  did 
keep  within  reasonable  limits ;  and  what  has  been 
done,  it  seems  to  me,  can  be  done  again.  —  Jtine, 
1848.  ^ 

ALL  IMPROVEMENTS  LIABLE    TO  IN 
EQUALITY  TO   SOME   ONE. 

"VTEITHER  the  President,  nor  any  one,  can  pos 
sibly  specify  an  improvement  which  shall  not 
be  clearly  liable  to  one  or  another  of  the  objections 
he  has  urged  on  the  score  of  expediency.  I  have 
shown,  and  might  show  again,  that  no  work  —  no 
object — can  be  so  general  as  to  dispense  its  benefits 
with  precise  equality ;  and  this  inequality  is  chief 
among  the  "  portentous  consequences "  for  which 
he  declares  that  improvements  should  be  arrested. 


I3&  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

No,  sir :  when  the  President  intimates  that  some 
thing  in  the  way  of  improvements  may  properly  be 
done  by  the  General  Government,  he  is  shrinking 
from  the  conclusions  to  which  his  own  arguments 
would  force  him.  He  feels  that  the  improvements 
of  this  broad  and  goodly  land  are  a  mighty  interest ; 
and  he  is  unwilling  to  confess  to  the  people,  or  per 
haps  to  himself,  that  he  has  built  an  argument, 
which,  when  pressed  to  its  conclusion,  entirely  an 
nihilates  this  interest. 


MR.  POLK  AND   CHANCELLOR  KENT. 

TT  is  no  disparagement  to  Mr.  Polk,  nor,  indeed, 
to  any  one  who  devotes  much  time  to  politics, 
to  be  placed  far  behind  Chancellor  Kent  as  a  law 
yer.  His  attitude  was  most  favorable  to  correct 
conclusions.  He  wrote  coolly,  and  in  retirement. 
He  was  struggling  to  rear  a  durable  monument  of 
fame ;  and  he  well  knew  that  truth  and  thoroughly 
sound  reasoning  were  the  only  sure  foundations. 
Can  the  party  opinion  of  a  party  President,  on  a 
law-question,  as  this  purely  is,  be  at  all  compared 
or  set  in  opposition  to  that  of  such  a  man,  in  such 
an  attitude,  as  Chancellor  Kent? 


INTERNAL    IMPROVEMENTS.  139 

WORK  TOGETHER. 

T  ET  the  nation  take  hold  of  the  larger  works, 
"^^  and  the  States  the  smaller  ones;  and  thus, 
working  in  a  meeting  direction,  discreetly,  but 
steadily  and  firmly,  what  is  made  unequal  in  one 
place  may  be  equalized  in  another,  extravagance 
avoided,  and  the  whole  country  put  on  that  career 
of  prosperity  which  shall  correspond  with  its  ex 
tent  of  territory,  its  natural  resources,  and  the  intel 
ligence  and  enterprise  of  its  people. 


CONCLUSION. 


CONCLUSION. 


TN  the  preparation  of  this  volume,  we  have  been 
obliged  to  resist  the  temptations  constantly  be 
fore  us,  to  enter  upon  the  biography  of  President 
Lincoln.  We  have  held  ourselves  to  our  leading 
object,  a^id  refrained  as  far  as  possible  from  narra- 

tyfe. 

The— record  of  the  President's  life,  as  made  by 
himself  for  Mr.  Charles  Lanman's  "  Dictionary  of 
Congress,"  is  in  the  following  words :  — 

Born,  Feb.  12,  1809,  *n  Hardin  County,  Ken 
tucky. 

Education  defective. 

Profession,  a  lawyer.  Have  been  a  captain  of 
volunteers  in  the  Black-Hawk  war. 

Postmaster  at  a  very  small  office.  Four  times 
a  member  of  the  Illinois  Legislature.  And  was  a 
member  of  the  lower  house  of  Congress. 

Yours,  &c., 

A.  LINCOLN. 

[H3] 


144  TIIE    PRESIDENT  S    WORDS. 

It  may  be  convenient  to  add  to  these  dates  the 
following :  — 

In  1849,  he  left  Congress.  In  1856,  he  received 
one  hundred  and  two  votes,  in  the  Republican  Con 
vention,  as  a  candidate  for  Vice-President,  to  run 
with  Mr.  Fremont.  The  Republicans  of  Illinois 
named  him  at  the  head  of  their  electoral  ticket, 
which  did  not  succeed.  In  1858,  when  a  senator 
was  to  be  elected,  he  and  Mr.  Douglas  canvassed 
the  State  together,  in  that  discussion,  which  gained 
a  national  celebrity,  from  which  we  have  made  so 
many  extracts. 

On  the  1 6th  May,  1860,  in  the  last  year  of  Mr. 
James  Buchanan's  career,  the  Republican  National 
Convention  met  at  Chicago.  On  the  third  ballot, 
Mr.  Lincoln  was  named  its  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency.  The  following  incident  is  preserved  of  the 
announcement  of  the  news  to  him.  Such  incidents 
go  far  towards  illustrating  the  traits  of  character 
which  endeared  him  so  truly  where  he  was  best 
known. 

The  superintendent  of  the  Telegraph  Company 
wrote  on  a  scrap  of  paper,  —  "  Mr.  Lincoln  :  You 
are  nominated  on  the  third  ballot ;  "  and  a  boy  ran 
with  tlu  message  to  Mr.  Lincoln.  He  looked  at  it 
in  silence,  amid  the  shouts  of  those  around  him ; 


CONCLUSION.  145 

then,  rising  and  putting  it  in  his  pocket,  he  said 
quietly,  "  There's  a  little  woman  down  at  our  house 
would  like  to  hear  this.  I'll  go  down,  and  tell  her." 
On  the  6th  of  November,  1860,  he  was  elected 
President.  The  popular  vote  gave  — 

LINCOLN 1,866,452 

DOUGLAS i>375>t57 

BELL 590,631 

BRECKINRIDGE 847,953 

Mr.  Lincoln,  and  Mr.  Hamlin,  the  Vice-President, 
received  180  electoral  votes.  Mr.  Bell  received 
39;  Mr.  Douglas  received  12;  Mr.  Breckinridge 
received  72. 

On  his  journey  to  Washington,  in  February,  1861, 
he  was  received  everywhere  with  enthusiasm.  The 
rebellion  had  already  broken  out,  and  the  country 
had  no  hope  but  in  him.  It  is  in  this  journey  that 
the  following  anecdotes  find  place  :  — 

At  Northeast  Station,  he  took  occasion  to  say,  that, 
during  the  campaign,  he  had  received  a  letter  from 
a  young  girl  of  the  place,  in  which  he  was  kindlv 
admonished  to  do  certain  things  ;  and,  among  others, 
to  lot  his  whiskers  grow  ;  and,  as  he  had  acted  upon 
that  piece  of  advice,  he  would  now  be  glad  to  wel 
come  his  fair  correspondent,  if  she  was  among  the 
crowd.  In  response  to  the  call,  a  lassie  made  her 
7  J 


146 

way  through  the  crowd,  was  helped  on  to  the  plat 
form,  and  was  kissed  by  the  President. 

At  Utica  he  said,  u  I  appear  before  you  that  I 
may  see  you,  and  that  you  may  see  me  ;  and  I  am 
willing  to  admit,  that,  so  far  as  the  ladies  are  con 
cerned,  I  have  the  best  of  the  bargain ;  though  I 
wish  it  to  be  understood,  that  I  do  not  make  the 
same  acknowledgment  concerning  the  men." 

At  Hudson  he  said,  "I  see  you  have  provided  a 
platform  ;  but  I  shall  have  to  decline  standing  on  it. 
I  had  to  decline  standing  on  some  very  handsome 
platforms  prepared  for  me  yesterday.  But  I  say  to 
you,  as  I  said  to  them,  you  must  not  on  this  account 
draw  the  inference,  that  I  have  any  intention  to 
desert  any  platform  I  have  a  legitimate  right  to 
stand  on. 

At  Philadelphia,  information  was  received  which 
made  it  certain  that  even  then  a  plot  was  laid 
against  his  life.  This  caution  probably  had  reached 
him,  when,  at  a  flag-raising  on  Independence  Hall, 
Philadelphia,  he  used  these  remarkable  words  :  — 

"  I  have  often  inquired  of  myself,  what  great 
principle  or  idea  it  was  that  kept  this  confederacy 
so  long  together.  It  was  something  in  the  Declara 
tion  of  Independence,  giving  liberty,  not  only  to  the 
people  of  this  country,  but  hope  to  the  world  for  all 


CONCLUSION.  147 

future  time.  It  was  that  which  gave  promise,  that, 
in  due  time,  the  weights  should  be  lifted  from  the 
shoulders  of  all  men,  and  that  all  should  have  an 
equal  chance.  .  .  .  Now,  my  friends,  can  this  coun 
try  be  saved  upon  this  basis?  If  it  can,  I  will  con 
sider  myself  one  of  the  happiest  'men  in  the  world, 
if  I  can  help  to  save  it.  But,  if  this  country  cannot 
be  saved  without  giving  up  that  principle,  I  was 
about  to  say,  I  would  rather  be  assassinated  upon 
the  spot  than  to  surrender  it." 

Since  his  inauguration,  his  life  belongs  to  the  his 
tory  of  the  world.  In  the  preceding  chapters  of 
.this  book,  we  have  copied,  as  largely  as  our  limits 
allow,  from  the  speeches,  letters,  messages,  and 
other  public  documents,  which  belong  to  it. 


Some  more  personal  traits  appear  in  the  follow 
ing  passages :  — 

TAKES  HIS   OWN  TIME  AND  HIS   OWN 
METHODS. 

T   SHALL  do  less,  whenever  I  shall  believe  what 
I  am   doing  hurts  the  cause ;    and  I  shall  do 
more,  whenever  I  believe  doing  more  will  help  the 
cause. 


I  shall  try  to  corre6l  errors,  when  shown  to  be 
errors ;  and  I  shall  adopt  new  views  so  fast  as  they 
shall  appear  to  be  true  views. 

I  have  here  stated  my  purpose,  according  to  my 
views  of  official  duty  ;  and  I  intend  no  modification 
of  my  oft-expresSed  personal  wish,  that  all  men 
everywhere  could  be  free.  —  August,  1862. 


PARAMOUNT  OBJECT. 

\  S  to  the  policy  I  "  seem  to  be  pursuing,"  as 
•*•*-  you  say,  I  have  not  meant  to  leave  any  one 
in  doubt.  I  would  save  the  Union.  I  would  save 
it  in  the  shortest  way  under  the  Constitution. 

The  sooner  the  national  authority  can  be  re 
stored,  the  nearer  the  Union  will  be, — the  Union 
as  it  was. 

If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union, 
unless  they  could,  at  the  same  time,  save  slavery,  I 
do  not  agree  with  them. 

If  there  be  those  who  would  not  save  the  Union, 
unless  they  could,  at  the  same  time,  destroy  slavery, 
I  do  not  agree  with  them. 

My  paramount  object  is  to  save  the  Union,  and 
not  either  to  save  or  destroy  slavery.  —  August, 
1862. 


CONCLUSION.  149 

FROM  THE  PRESIDENT   TO  HORACE 
GREELET. 

(Ext  rag.} 

TF  there  be  perceptible  in  it  (your  letter)  an  im 
patient  and  dictatorial  tone,  I  waive  it  in  defer 
ence  to  an  old  friend,  whose  heart  I  have  always 
supposed  to  be  right. 

He  is  the  first  President  of  the  United  States  who 
has  completely  abandoned  the  methods  and  tradi 
tions  of  diplomacy  in  addressing  himself  to  the 
people.  He  seems  to  have  preferred  to  explain 
his  policy  himself  to  those  whom  he  recognized  as 
the  sovereign  power  of  the  nation,  in  exactly  the 
familiar,  even  conversational  way,  in  which  it 
would  eventually  be  discussed  at  men's  firesides. 
From  this  method  of  his,  and  from  his  profound 
common  sense,  it  resulted,  that  almost  every  address 
of  his,  or  published  letter,  really  enlightened  the 
public,  and  gave  new  courage  to  the  nation.  It 
was  often  said,  that  he  was  the  only  President  who 
did  not  injure  himself  by  writing  letters.  The  re 
mark  might  go  much  farther.  He  did  not  speak 
often,  or  write  often.  He  always  spoke  with  free 
dom,  yet  never  revealed  any  thing  which  he  meant 


150  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

to  keep  secret/ or  which  needed  to  be  kept  secret. 
And  when  he  did  speak,  he  almost  invariably  re 
conciled,  encouraged,  or  animated  the  people,  who, 
through  the  whole  country,  listened. 

From  his  messages,  we  have  made  large  extracts. 
The  close  of  the  Message  of  December  i,  1862, 
illustrates  the  same  responsibility  which  is  evident 
in  all  of  them. 


WE  BELONG   TO  HIS  TORT. 

•pELLOW-CITIZENS,  —  We  cannot  escape 
history.  We,  of  this  Congress  and  this  Ad 
ministration,  will  be  remembered  in  spite  of  our 
selves.  .  .  .  We  say,  that  we  are  for  the  Union. 
The  world  will  not  forget  that  we  say  this.  We 
know  how  to  save  the  Union.  The  world  knows 
we  know  how  to  save  it.  We  —  even  we  here  — 
hold  the  power,  and  bear  the  responsibility.  In 
giving  freedom  to  the  slave,  we  assure  freedom  to 
the  free,  —  honorable  alike  in  what  we  give  and 
what  we  preserve.  We  shall  nobly  save,  or  meanly 
lose,  the  last  best  hope  of  earth.  Other  means  may 
succeed :  this  could  not,  cannot  fail.  The  way  is 
plain,  peaceful,  generous,  just;  a  way  which,  if 
followed,  the  world  will  for  ever  applaud,  and  God 
must  for  ever  bless. 


CONCLUSION.  151 

THE  INAUGURAL  ADDRESS. 

This  sense  of  an  unbounded  responsibility,  im 
posed  on  the  nation  and  its  officers  by  the  living 
God,  is  the  theme  of  the  Inaugural  of  the  4th  of 
March,  1865. 

"pELLOW-COUNTRYMEN,  —  At  this  second 
appearing  to  take  the  oath  of  the  Presidential 
office,  there  is  less  occasion  for  an  extended  address 
than  there  was  at  the  first.  Then  a  statement  some 
what  in  detail  of  a  course  to  be  pursued  seemed 
very  fitting  and  proper.  Now,  at  the  expiration  of 
four  years,  during  which  public  declarations  have 
constantly  been  called  forth  on  every  point  and 
phase  of  the  great  contest  which  still  absorbs  the 
attention  and  engrosses  the  energies  of  the  nation, 
little  that  is  new  could  be  presented. 

The  progress  of  our  arms,  upon  which  all  else 
chiefly  depends,  is  as  well  known  to  the  public  as 
to  myself;  and  it  is,  I  trust,  reasonably  satisfactory 
and  encouraging  to  all.  With  high  hope  for  the 
future,  no  prediction  in  regard  to  it  is  ventured. 
On  the  occasion  corresponding  to  this,  four  years 
ago,  all  thoughts  were  anxiously  directed  to  an  im 
pending  civil  war.  All  dreaded  it,  all  sought  to 


152  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

avoid  it.  While  the  inaugural  address  was  being 
delivered  from  this  place,  devoted  altogether  to  sav 
ing  the  Union  without  war,  insurgent  agents  were 
in  the  city,  seeking  to  destroy  it  without  war, — 
seeking  to  dissolve  the  Union  and  divide  the  effects 
by  negotiation. 

Both  parties  deprecated  war ;  but  one  of  them 
would  make  war  rather  than  let  the  nation  survive, 
and  the  other  would  accept  war  rather  than  let  it 
perish  :  and  the  war  came. 

One-eighth  of  the  whole  population  were  colored 
slaves,  not  distributed  generally  over  the  Union,  but 
located  in  the  southern  part  of  it.  These  slaves 
constituted  a  peculiar  and  powerful  interest.  All 
knew  that  this  interest  was  somehow  the  cause  of 
the  war.  To  strengthen,  perpetuate,  and  extend 
this  interest  was  the  object  for  which  the  insurgents 
would  rend  the  Union  by  war,  while  Government 
claimed  no  right  to  do  more  than  to  restrict  the  ter 
ritorial  enlargement  of  it.  Neither  party  expected 
the  magnitude  or  the  duration  which  it  has  already 
attained.  Neither  anticipated  that  the  cause  of  the 
conflict  might  cease,  even  before  the  conflict  itself 
should  cease.  Each  looked  for  an  easier  triumph, 
and  a  result  less  fundamental  and  astounding. 
Both  read  the  same  Bible  and  pray  to  the  same 


CONCLUSION.  153 

God,  and  each  invokes  his  aid  against  the  other.  It 
may  seem  strange  that  any  man  should  dare  to  ask 
a  just  God's  assistance  in  wringing  his  bread  from 
the  sweat  of  other  men's  faces.  But  let  us  judge 
not,  that  we  be  not  judged.  The  prayer  of  both 
should  not  be  answered.  That  of  neither  has  been 
answered  fully.  The  Almighty  has  his  own  pur 
poses.  "  Woe  unto  the  world  because  of  offences, 
for  it  must  needs  be  that  offences  come  ;  but  woe  to 
that  man  by  whom  the  offence  cometh."  If  we 
shall  suppose  that  American  slavery  is  one  of  these 
offences,  which,  in  the  providence  of  God,  must 
needs  come,  but  which,  having  continued  through 
his  appointed  time,  he  now  wills  to  remove,  and 
that  he  gives  to  both  North  and  South  this  terrible 
war  as  the  woe  due  to  those  by  whom  the  offence 
came,  shall  we  discern  therein  any  departure  from 
those  divine  attributes  which  the  believers  in  a  liv 
ing  God  always  ascribe  to  him? 

Fondly  do  we  hope,  fervently  do  we  pray,  that 
this  mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away. 
Yet  if  God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the 
wealth  piled  by  the  bondman's  two  hundred  and 
fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be  sunk,  and  until 
every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the  lash  shall  be 
paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as  was 
7* 


154  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

said  three  thousand  years  ago ;  so  still  it  must  be 
said,  that  the  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and 
righteous  altogether. 

With  malice  towards  none,  with  charity  for  all, 
with  firmness  in  the  right,  as  God  gives  us  to  see 
the  right,  let  us  strive  on  to  finish  the  work  we  are 
in  ;  to  bind  up  the  nation's  wound  ;  to  care  for  him 
who  shall  have  borne  the  battle,  and  for  his  widow 
and  his  orphans ;  to  do  all  which  may  achieve  and 
cherish  a  just  and  a  lasting  peace  among  ourselves, 
and  with  all  nations. 


The  victories  of  March  and  April  gave  some 
relief  to  the  tremendous  strain  of  responsibility 
which  had  weighed  on  the  President  so  long.  In 
March  he  visited  the  camp  before  Petersburg  and 
Richmond  ;  and,  with  his  easy  and  constant  desire  to 
maintain  personal  relations  with  the  people,  he  sent 
himself  the  daily  bulletins  of  victory,  from  one  of 
which  we  have  quoted  the  sad  prophecy  which  is 
the  motto  of  this  book. 

He  had  returned  to  Washington  before  Lee's  sur 
render.  On  the  night  when  that  news  was  received, 
he  was  called  out  by  an  eager  throng,  who  sere 
naded  him,  to  address  them.  He  made  his  last 
long  speech.  His  face,  so  often  sad  and  careworn, 


CONCLUSION.  155 

"  beamed  with  a  patriotic  joy."  These  are  the 
words  of  a  sensative  bystander.  The  President 
said, — 

"  We  meet  this  evening,  not  in  sorrow,  but  in 
gladness  of  heart.  The  evacuation  of  Petersburg 
and  Richmond,  and  surrender  of  the  principal 
insurgent  army,  give  hopes  of  a  righteous  and 
speedy  peace,  whose  joyous  expression  cannot  be 
restrained.  In  the  midst  of  this,  however,  '  He  from 
whom  all  blessings  flow*  must  not  be  forgotten. 
A  call  for  a  National  Thanksgiving  is  being  pre 
pared,  and  will  be  duly  promulgated.  Nor  must 
those  whose  harder  part  gives  us  the  cause  of  rejoic 
ing  be  overlooked  ;  their  honors  must  not  be  par 
celled  out  with  others.  I  myself  was  near  the  front, 
and  had  the  high  pleasure  of  transmitting  much  of 
the  good  news  to  you ;  but  no  part  of  the  honor 
for  the  plan  or  execution  is  mine.  To  General 
Grant,  his  skilful  officers  and  brave  men,  it  all 
belongs.  The  gallant  navy  stood  ready,  but  was 
not  in  reach  to  take  an  active  part. 

"Nor  is  it  a  small  additional  embarrassment  that 
we,  the  loyal  people,  differ  among  ourselves  as  to 
the  mode,  manner,  and  measure  of  reconstruction. 

"  By  these  recent  successes  the  re-inauguration  of 
the  national  authority,  the  reconstruction  of  which 


iS6 


has  had  a  large  share  of  thought  from  the  first,  is 
pressed  much  more  closely  upon  our  attention.  It 
is  fraught  with  great  difficulty.  Unlike  a  case  of 
war  between  independent  nations,  there  is  no  au 
thorized  organ  for  us  to  treat  with ;  no  one  man  has 
authority  to  give  up  the  rebellion  for  any  other 
man.  We  simply  must  begin  with  and  mould  from 
disorganized  and  discordant  elements. 

"  As  a  general  rule,  I  abstain  from  reading  the 
reports  of  attacks  upon  myself,  wishing  not  to  be 
provoked  by  that  to  which  I  cannot  properlv  return 
an  answer.  In  spite  of  this  precaution,  however, 
it  comes  to  my  knowledge  that  I  am  much  censured 
for  some  supposed  agency  in  setting  up  and  seeking 
to  sustain  the  new  State  government  of  Louisiana. 
In  this  I  have  done  just  so  much  and  no  more  than 
the  public  knows.  In  the  annual  message  of 
December,  1863,  and  accompanying  proclamation, 
I  presented  a  plan  of  reconstruction,  as  the  phrase 
goes,  which  I  promised,  if  adopted  by  any  State, 
would  be  acceptable  to  and  sustained  by  the  Execu 
tive  Government  of  the  nation.  I  distinctly  stated 
that  this  was  not  the  only  plan  which  might  possi 
bly  be  accepted,  and  I  also  distinctly  protested  that 
the  Executive  claimed  no  right  to  say  when  or 
whether  members  should  be  entitled  to  seats  in 


CONCLUSION.  157 

Congress  from  such  States.  This  plan  was  in  ad 
vance  submitted  to  the  then  Cabinet,  and  approved 
by  every  member  of  it.  One  of  them  suggested  that 
I  should  then  and  in  that  connection  apply  the 
emancipation  proclamation  to  the  excepted  parts 
of  Virginia  and  Louisiana  ;  that  I  should  drop  the 
suggestion  about  apprenticeship  for  freed  people, 
and  that  I  should  omit  the  protest  against  my  own 
power  in  regard  to  the  admission  of  members  of 
Congress ;  but  even  he  approved  every  part  and 
parcel  of  the  plan  which  has  since  been  employed 
or  touched  by  the  action  of  Louisiana.  The  new 
Constitution  of  Louisiana,  declaring  emancipation 
for  the  whole  State,  practically  applies  the  procla 
mation  to  the  part  previously  excepted  ;  it  does  not 
adopt  apprenticeship  for  freed  people,  and  is  silent, 
as  it  could  not  well  be  otherwise,  about  the  admis 
sion  of  members  to  Congress.  So  that,  as  it 
applied  to  Louisiana,  every  member  of  the  Cabinet 
fully  approved  the  plan.  The  message  went  to 
Congress,  and  I  received  many  commendations t  of 
the  plan,  written  and  verbal ;  and  not  a  single  objec 
tion  to  it  from  any  professed  emancipationist  came 
to  my  knowledge  until  after  the  news  reached 
Washington  that  the  people  of  Louisiana  had  begun 
to  move  in  accordance  with  it.  From  about  July, 


158 

1862,  I  had  corresponded  with  different  persons 
supposed  to  be  interested  in  the  reconstruction  of  a 
State  government  for  Louisiana.  When  the  mes 
sage  of  1863,  with  the  plan  before  mentioned, 
reached  New  Orleans,  General  Banks  wrote  me 
that  he  was  confident  the  people,  with  his  military 
co-operation,  would  reconstruct  substantially  on 
that  plan.  I  wrote  to  him  and  some  of  them  to 
try  it.  They  tried  it,  and  the  result  is  known. 
Such  has  been  my  only  agency  in  getting  up  the 
Louisiana  government.  As  to  sustaining  it,  my 
promise  is  out,  as  before  stated ;  but,  as  bad  prom 
ises  are  better  broken  than  kept,  I  shall  treat  this  as 
a  bad  promise,  and  break  it  whenever  I  shall  be 
convinced  that  keeping  it  is  adverse  to  the  public 
interest :  but  I  have  not  yet  been  so  convinced.  I 
have  been  shown  a  letter  on  this  subject,  supposed 
to  be  an  able  one,  in  which  the  writer  expresses 
regret  that  my  mind  has  not  seemed  to  be  definitely 
fixed  on  the  question,  whether  the  seceded  States, 
so<called,  are  in  the  Union  or  out  of  it.  It  would, 
perhaps,  add  astonishment  to  his  regret,  were  he  to 
learn,  that,  since  I  have  found  professed  Union  men 
endeavoring  to  answer  that  question,  I  have  pur 
posely  forborne  any  public  expression  upon  it.  As 
it  appears  to  me,  that  question  has  not  been,  nor  is 


CONCLUSION.  159 

yet,  a  practically  material  one  ;  and  thus  any  dis 
cussion  of  it,  while  it  thus  remains  practically 
immaterial,  could  have  no  effect  other  than  the 
mischievous  one  of  dividing  our  friends  ;  yet,  what 
ever  it  may  become,  that  question  is  bad  as  a  basis 
of  controversy,  and  good  for  nothing  at  all. 

"  We  all  agree,  that  the  seceded  States,  so  called, 
are  out  of  their  proper  practical  relation  with  the 
Union  ;  and  that  the  sole  object  of  the  Government, 
civil  and  military,  in  regard  to  these  States,  is  to 
again  get  them  into  that  proper  practical  relation. 
I  believe  it  is  not  only  possible,  but  in  fact  easier, 
to  do  this,  without  deciding,  or  even  considering, 
whether  those  States  have  ever  been  out  of  the 
Union,  than  with  it.  Finding  themselves  safely  at 
home,  it  would  be  utterly  immaterial  whether  they 
had  been  abroad.  Let  us  all  join  in  doing  the  acts 
necessary  to  restore  the  proper  practical  relations 
between  these  States  and  the  Union  ;  and  each  for 
ever  after  innocently  indulge  his  own  opinion, 
whether,  in  doing  the  acts,  he  brought  the  States 
from  without  into  the  Union,  or  only  gave  them 
proper  assistance,  —  they  never  having  been  out 
of  it. 

"  The  amount  of  constituency,  so  to  speak,  on 
which  the  Louisiana  government  rests,  would  be 


160  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

more  satisfactory  to  all,  if  it  contained  fifty  thousand 
or  thirty  thousand,  or  even  twenty  thousand,  instead 
of  twelve  thousand,  as  it  does.  It  is  also  unsatis 
factory  to  some,  that  the  elective  franchise  is  not 
given  to  the  colored  man.  I  would  myself  prefer 
that  it  were  now  conferred  on  the  very  intelligent, 
and  on  those  who  serve  our  cause  as  soldiers. 
Still  the  question  is  not,  whether  the  Louisiana 
government,  as  it  stands,  is  quite  all  that  is  desira 
ble.  The  question  is,  Will  it  be  wiser  to  take  it 
as  it  is,  and  help  to  improve  it,  or  to  reject  it  ?  Can 
Louisiana  be  brought  into  the  proper  practical 
relation  with  the  Union  sooner  by  sustaining  or 
discarding  her  new  State  government  ?  Some 
twelve  thousand  voters,  in  the  heretofore  Slave  State 
of  Louisiana,  have  sworn  allegiance  to  the  Union, 
assumed  to  be  the  rightful  political  power  of  the 
State,  held  elections,  organized  a  State  government, 
adopted  a  Free-State  Constitution,  giving  the  bene 
fit  of  the  public  schools  equally  to  white  and  black, 
and  empowering  the  Legislature  to  confer  the  elec 
tive  franchise  upon  the  colored  man.  This  Legis 
lature  has  already  voted  to  ratify  the  Constitutional 
amendment,  recently  passed  by  Congress,  abolish 
ing  slavery  throughout  the  nation. 

"  These  twelve  thousand  persons  are  thus  fully 


CONCLUSION.  l6l 

committed  to  the  Union,  and  to  perpetuate  freedom 
in  the  State,  —  committed  to  the  very  things  and 
nearly  all  the  things  the  nation  wants  ;  and  they  ask 
the  nation's  recognition  and  its  assistance  to  make 
good  this  committal.  Now,  if  we  reject  and  spurn 
them,  we  do  our  utmost  to  disorganize  and  disperse 
them.  We,  in  fact,  say  to  the  white  man,  '  You  are 
worthless,  or  worse :  wre  will  neither  help  you,  nor 
be  helped  by  you/  To  the  blacks  we  say,  '  This 
cup  of  liberty,  which  these  your  old  masters  hold  to 
your  lips,  we  will  dash  from  you,  and  leave  you  to 
the  chances  of  gathering  the  spilled  and  scattered 
contents  in  some  vague  and  undefined  manner, 
when,  where,  or  how  we  cannot  tell.'  If  this 
course,  discouraging  and  paralyzing  both  white  and 
black,  has  any  tendency  to  bring  Louisiana  into 
proper  practical  relations  with  the  Union,  I  have  so 
far  been  unable  to  perceive  it. 

"  If,  on  the  contrary,  we  recognize  and  sustain  the 
new  government  of  Louisiana,  the  converse  of  all 
this  is  true.  We  encourage  the  hearts  and  nerve  the 
arms  of  twelve  thousand  to  adhere  to  their  work,  and 
argue  for  it,  and  proselyte  for  it,  and  fight  for  it ;. 
and  feed  it,  and  grow  it,  and  ripen  it  to  a  complete 
success.  The  colored  man,  too,  in  seeing  all  united 
for  him,  is  inspired  with  vigilance  and  energy  and 


162 


daring  to  the  same  end.  Grant  that  he  desires  the 
elective  franchise,  will  he  not  obtain  it  sooner  by 
saving  the  already  advanced  steps  towards  it  than 
by  falling  backwards  over  them  ? 

"  Concede  that  the  new  government  of  Louisiana 
is  only  to  what  it  should  be  as  the  egg  is  to  the 
fowl,  we  shall  sooner  have  the  fowl  by  hatching  the 
egg  than  by  smashing  it. 

"  Again,  if  we  reject  Louisiana,  we  also  reject 
her  vote  in  favor  of  the  proposed  amendment  to  the 
national  Constitution.  To  meet  this  proposition,  it 
has  been  argued  that  no  more  than  three-fourths  of 
those  States  which  have  not  attempted  secession, 
are  necessary  to  validly  ratify  the  amendment.  I 
do  not  commit  myself  against  this  further  than  to 
say,  that  such  a  ratification  would  be  questionable, 
and  sure  to  be  persistently  questioned,  while  its  rati 
fication  by  three-fourths  of  all  the  States  would  be 
unquestioned  and  unquestionable. 

"  I  repeat  the  question,  —  Can  Louisiana  be 
brought  into  proper  practical  relations  with  the 
Union  sooner  by  sustaining  or  by  discarding  her 
new  State  government? 

"  What  has  been  said  of  Louisiana  will  apply  to 
other  States  ;  and  yet  so  great  peculiarities  pertain 
to  each  State,  and  such  important  and  sudden 


CONCLUSION.  163 

changes  occur  in  the  same  State,  and  withal  so  new 
and  unprecedented  is  the  whole  case,  that  no  ex 
clusive  and  inflexible  plan  can  safely  be  prescribed 
as  to  details  and  collaterals.  Such  an  exclusive 
and  inflexible  plan  would  surely  become  a  new  en 
tanglement.  Important  principles  may  and  must 
be  inflexible.  In  the  present  situation,  as  the  phrase 
goes,  it  may  be  my  duty  to  make  some  new  an 
nouncement  to  the  people  of  the  South.  I  am  con 
sidering,  and  shall  not  fail  to  act  when  satisfied  that 
action  will  be  proper." 


INTEMPERANCE    IN    THE   ARMT. 

TN  answer  to  a  delegation  of  the  Sons  of  Temper- 
ance  on  this  subject,  the  President  replied  in 
substance :  When  he  was  a  young  man,  long  ago, 
before  the  Sons  of  Temperance,  as  an  organization, 
had  an  existence,  he,  in  a  humble  way,  made  tem 
perance  speeches ;  and  he  thought  he  might  say, 
that,  to  this  day,  he 'had  never,  by  his  example, 
belied  what  he  then  said.  As  to  the  suggestions  for 
the  purpose  of  the  advancement  of  the  cause  of 
ten  perance  in  the  army,  he  could  not  respond"  td 
them.  To  prevent  intemperance  in  the  army  is  the 
aim  of  a  great  part  of  the  rules  and  articles  of  war. 


164  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

It  is  part  of  the  law  of  the  land,  and  was  so,  he 
presumed,  long  ago,  to  dismiss  officers  for  drunken 
ness.  He  was  not  sure,  that,  consistently  with  the 
public  service,  more  could  be  done  than  has  been 
done.  All,  therefore,  he  could  promise,  was  to  have 
a  copy  of  the  address  submitted  to  the  principal 
departments,  and  have  it  considered  whether  it  con 
tains  any  suggestions  which  will  improve  the  cause 
of  temperance  and  repress  drunkenness  in  the  army 
any  better  than  is  already  done.  He  thought  the 
reasonable  men  of  the  world  have  long  since  agreed, 
that  drunkenness  is  one  of  the  greatest,  if  not  the 
very  greatest,  of  all  evils  among  mankind.  That  is 
not  a  matter  of  dispute.  All  men  agree  that  intem 
perance  is  a  great  curse,  but  differ  about  the  cure. 
The  suggestion  that  it  existed  to  a  great  extent  in 
the  army  was  true  ;  but,  whether  that  was  the  cause 
of  defeats,  he  knew  not :  but  he  did  know  that  there 
was  a  great  deal  of  it  on  the  other  side ;  therefore 
they  had  no  right  to  beat  us  on  that  ground. 


*T^HE  following  incident,  as  related  by  the  Wash- 
"*•     ington  correspondent  of  the  "  Chicago  Trib 
une,"  is  a  touching  instance  of  his  genuine  goodness 


CONCLUSION.  165 

of  heart,  combined  with  the  native  simplicity  of  a 
country  gentleman  :  — 

"  I  dropped  in  upon  Mr.  Lincoln  on  Monday  last, 
and  found  him  busily  engaged  in  counting  green 
backs.  l  This,  sir,'  said  he,  '  is  something  out  of  my 
usual  line  ;  but  a  President  of  the  United  States  has 
a  multiplicity  of  duties  not  specified  in  the  Consti 
tution,  or  Ads  of  Congress :  this  is  one  of  them. 
This  money  belongs  to  a  poor  negro,  who  is  a  por 
ter  in  one  of  the  departments  (the  Treasury),  and 
who  is  at  present  very  sick  with  the  small-pox.  He 
is  now  in  the  hospital,  and  could  not  draw  his  pay, 
because  he  could  not  sign  his  name.  k  I  have  been 
at  considerable  trouble  to  overcome  the  difficulty, 
and  get  it  for  him ;  and  have  at  length  succeeded 
in  cutting  red  tape,  as  you  newspaper-men  say.  I 
am  now  dividing  the  money,  and  putting  by  a  por 
tion,  labelled  in  an  envelope  with  my  own  hands, 
according  to  his  wish/" 


HONOR    TO    WHOM  HONOR. 

T    ADIES  and  gentlemen,  I  appear  to  say  but  a 
word.     This  extraordinary  war,  in  which  we 
are  engaged,  falls  heavily  upon  all  classes  of  peo 
ple,  but  the  most  heavily  upon  the  soldier.     For,  it 


1 66  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

has  been  said,  "  all  that  a  man  hath  will  he  give  for 
his  life ;  "  and,  while  all  contribute  of  their  sub 
stance,  the  soldier  puts  his  life  at  stake,  and  often 
yields  it  up  in  his  country's  cause.  The  highest 
merit,  then,  is  due  to  the  soldier. 

HIS   LAST    WRITING. 

r  I  ^HE  last  words  written  by  Mr.  Lincoln  were 
addressed  to  Hon.  George  Ashmun  of  Massa 
chusetts.  They  were  written  by  him  after  he  got 
into  the  carriage  to  go  to  the  theatre,  on  a  card 
upon  his  knee,  and  were  as  follows :  "  Allow  Mr. 
Ashmun  and  friend  to  come  to  me  at  nine,  A.M., 
to-morrow.  — A.  LINCOLN." 


the  I4th  of  April,  the  United-States  flag  was 
raised  on  Fort  Sumter,  where  it  had  been 
struck  four  years  before.  In  the  observance  of  that 
holiday,  the  President  and  General  Grant  were  in 
vited  to  Ford's  theatre,  at  Washington.  General 
Grant  was  not  able  to  go.  Mr.  Lincoln  went, 
though  unwilling.  "  I  should  be  sorry,"  he  said, 
"  to  have  people  disappointed."  These  are,  per 
haps,  the  last  words  of  the  President,  which  may 
rightly  be  published  to  the  world. 


CONCLUSION.        »  167 


HIS   LAST   SPEECH   IN  PUBLIC. 

T  TIS  last  speech  in  public  was  in  response  to  a 
A  serenade,  Wednesday  night,  the  night  follow 
ing  the  passage  of  the  Amendment  of  the  Constitu 
tion.  President  Lincoln  said  he  supposed  the 
passage  through  Congress  of  the  Constitutional 
Amendment,  for  abolishing  slavery  throughout  the 
United  States,  was  the  occasion  to  which  he  was 
indebted  for  the  honor  of  this  call.  The  occa 
sion  was  one  of  congratulation  to  the  country 
and  to  the  wrhole  world.  But  there  is  a  task  yet 
before  us,  to  go  forward  and  consummate  by  the 
votes  of  the  States  that  which  Congress  so  nobly 
began  yesterday.  [Applause,  and  cries,  "  They 
will  do  it."]  He  had  the  honor  to  inform  those 
present  that  Illinois  had  already,  to-day,  done  the 
work.  Maryland  was  about  half  through  ;  but  he 
felt  proud  that  Illinois  was  a  little  ahead.  He 
thought  this  measure  was  a  very  fitting  one,  if  not 
an  indispensable  one,  adjunct  to  the  winding-up  of 
the  great  difficult)'. 

He  wished  the  Union  of  all  the  States  perfected, 
and  so  effected  as  to  remove  all  causes  of  disturb 
ance  in  the  future ;  and,  to  obtain  this  end,  it  was 


1  68 


necessary  that  the  original  disturbing  cause  should, 
if  possible,  be  rooted  out. 

He  thought  all  would  bear  him  witness,  that  he 
had  never  shrunk  from  doing  all  that  he  could  to 
eradicate  slavery,  by  issuing  an  emancipation  pro 
clamation  ;  but  that  proclamation  falls  far  short  of 
what  the  amendment  will  be  when  fully  consum 
mated. 

A  question  might  be  raised,  whether  the  procla 
mation,  was  legally  valid.  It  might  be  added,  that 
it  only  aided  those  who  came  into  our  lines  ;  and 
that  it  was  inoperative  as  to  those  who  did  not  give 
themselves  up,  or  that  it  would  have  no  effect  upon 
children  of  slaves  born  hereafter.  In  fact,  it  would 
be  urged  that  it  did  not  meet  the  evil  ;  but  this 
amendment  is  a  king's  cure  for  all  evils.  It  winds 
the  whole  thing  up.  He  would  repeat,  that  it  was 
the  fitting,  if  not  indispensable,  adjunct  to  the  con 
summation  of  the  great  game  we  are  playing.  He 
could  not  but  congratulate  all  present,  the  country, 
the  whole  world,  and  himself,  upon  this  great  moral 
victory. 

77/5  LAST  INTERVIEW  WITH  HIS  FRIENDS. 


I 


N  the  afternoon  of  the  fatal  Friday,  the  President 
had  a  long  and  pleasant  interview  with  General 


CONCLUSION.  169 

Oglesby,  Senator  Yates,  and  other  leading  citizens 
of  his  State.  In  the  evening,  Mr.  Colfax  called 
again  at  his  request ;  and  Mr.  Ashmun  of  Massa 
chusetts,  who  presided  over  the  Chicago  Convention 
of  1860,  was  present.  To  them  he  spoke  of  his 
visit  to  Richmond ;  and  when  they  stated  that  there 
was  much  uneasiness  at  the  North  while  he  was  at 
the  rebel  capital,  for  fear  that  some  traitor  might 
shoot  him,  he  replied,  jocularly,  that  he  would  have 
been  alarmed  himself  if  any  other  person  had  been 
President,  and  gone  there  ;  but  that  he  did  not  feel 
that  he  was  in  any  danger  whatever. 

Conversing  on  a  matter  of  business  with  Mr. 
Ashmun,  he  made  a  remark  that  he  saw  Mr.  Ash 
mun  was  surprised  at ;  and  immediately,  with  his 
well-known  kindness  of  heart,  said,  "  You  did  not 
understand  me,  Ashmun  ;  I  did  not  mean  what  you 
inferred,  and  I  will  take  it  all  back  and  apologize 
for  it."  He  afterwards  gave  Mr.  Ashmun  a  card  to 
admit  himself  and  friend  early  next  morning,  to  con 
verse  further  about  it. 

Turning  to  Mr.  Colfax,  he  said,  "  You  are  going 
with  me  and  Mrs.  Lincoln  to  the  theatre,  I  hope." 
But  Mr.  Colfax  had  other  engagements,  expecting 
to  leave  the  city  the  next  morning.  He  then  said  to 
Mr.  Colfax,  "Mr.  Sumner  has  the  gavel  of  the 
8 


170  THE  PRESIDENT'S  WORDS. 

Confederate  Congress,  which  he  got  at  Richmond  to 
hand  to  the  Secretary  of  War ;  but  I  insisted  then 
that  he  must  give  it  to  you  :  tell  him  for  me  to  hand 
it  over."  Mr.  Ashmun  alluded  to  the  gavel,  which 
he  still  had,  and  which  he  had  used  at  the  Chicago 
Convention  ;  and  the  President,  and  Mrs.  Lincoln, 
who  was  also  in  the  parlor,  rose  to  go  to  the  theatre. 
It  was  half  an  hour  after  the  time  they  had  intended 
to  start,  and  they  spoke  about  waiting  half  an  hour 
longer ;  for  the  President  started  with  much  reluc 
tance,  as  General  Grant  had  gone  North,  and  he  did 
not  wish  the  people  to  be  disappointed,  as  they  had 
both  been  advertised  to  be  there.  At  the  door  he 
stopped  and  said,  "  Colfax,  do  not  forget  to  tell  the 
people  in  the  mining  regions,  as  you  pass  through 
them,  what  I  told  you  this  morning  about  the  devel 
opment  when  peace  comes ;  and  I  will  telegraph 
you  at  San  Francisco."  He  shook  hands  with  both 
gentlemen,  with  a  pleasant  "  good-by,"  and  left  the 
Executive  Mansion,  never  to  return  to  it  alive. 


INDEX. 


INDEX. 


PAGE. 

Abolitionists  shall  be  hung 65 

Absolute  Suffocation 70 

African  Slave-trade  Piracy 62 

All  of  a  Feather 17 

All  that  a  Man  hath 166 

All  would  go»\vell 126 

Almighty  has  his  own  Purposes 153 

Amending  the  Constitution 131 

An  Old  Friend 149 

Apologize  for  it 169 

Appeal  to  Justice  and  Human  Sympathy 101 

Applied  for  and  Granted 136 

Apprenticeship  for  Freedmen 157 

Are  Republicans  radical  ? 14 

Are  the  Decisions  in  Supreme  Court  irrevocable  ?  .     .  32 

Argued  up 25 

As  Commander-in-Chief 97 

Ashmun,  Hon.  George 166,  169 

Attempt  the  End,  &c 133 

A  Whole  Man,  or  only  Half 69 

Bad  Promise,  Treat  this  as  a 158 

Banks,  General 158 

Beamed  with  a  Patriotic  Joy 155 

Behind  the  Cloud,  &c 117 

Belongs  to  History 150 

Better  Angels  of  our  Nature 33 

[173] 


1 74  INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Bind  up  the  Nation's  Wound 154 

Black  and  White 80 

Blessed  are  the  Peacemakers 99 

Blood  of  Abel 21 

Bone  of  Contention     .     .     .     , 18 

Border  States  and  the  Proclamation 36 

Both  read  the  same  Bible 152 

Bowie-knives  and  Ballot-boxes 64 

Bull  by  the  Horns 19 

Bull  Run 98 

Buy  them  in  Africa 57 

California  and  Slavery 105 

Canada  Thistle 89 

Can  never  Forget  what  they  did 121 

Cannot  consent  to  lose  the  Time 47 

Cease  to  call  Slavery  Wrong 85 

"  Chicago  Tribune  " 164 

Chief-Justice  Taney 79 

Clay  and  Webster 114 

Coal  and  Abstractions 132 

Coercion  and  Invasion 28 

Commander  to  Sentinel 46 

Common  Charge 91 

Common  Father 126 

Compromise 43 

Compromises  of  1850 74 

Conclusion <     .  143 

Contracts 26 

Cool 23 

Corredl  Errors 148 

Crawls  up  to  buy  your  Slave 61 

Crisis  artificial 25 

Cup  of  Liberty 161 

Cutting  one  another's  Throats 90 

Dead-heads 94 


INDEX.  175 

TAGS. 

Decisions  of  Supreme  Court 32 

Declaration  of  Independence 66 

Despise  him  utterly .     .     .  61 

Difficult  Role 42 

Diplomacy  abandoned 149 

Dirty,  Disagreeable  Job 68 

Discordant  Elernents 156 

Dismiss  Officers  for  Drunkenness 164 

Divine  Right  of  Kings 61 

Divorce 26 

Do  nothing  at  all 131 

Don't  swap  Horses,  &c 48 

Douglas's  Dread no 

Douglas  for  the  Negro 86 

Douglas's  Version 15 

Dred-Scott  Decision 78 

Dred-Scott  Decision  erroneous 112 

Dred  Scott,  his  Wife,  and  two  Daughters 76 

Dr.  Kennedy 38 

Dr.  McPheeters 43 

Duties  of  the  President 165 

Egg  to  the  Fowl 162 

Elder-stalk  Squirts  and  Rosewater 95 

Elective  Franchise  to  Colored  Men 160 

Elevation  of  Men 13 

Emancipation 90 

Emancipation  will  not  reduce  the  Wages  of  White  Labor    91 

Enlisting  Colored  Troops 42 

Equal  in  Rights 78 

Equal  of  the  Hog 102 

Equal  Rights 58,  83 

Extension  of  Slavery 71 

Facts,  not  Arguments 20 

Faith 117 

Faith,  Hope,  and  Love 33 


176  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Faith  in  God 118 

Faith  in  our  Future nS 

Father  of  his  Country 120 

Few  Things  wholly  Evil 135 

Flag-raising 146 

Fools  rush  in,  &c 19 

Four  Sides 39 

Fourth  of  July,  1863 44 

Free  Blacks 101 

Free  Labor 1 1 

Free-love  Arrangement 29 

Fremont,  Butler,  and  Sigel 40 

Free-State  Democrat 57 

From  whence  come  Murders  ? 100 

Fundamental  Idea 36 

Gates  of  Hell,  &c 119 

General  Curtis 41 

General  Grant,  It  all  belongs  to •  155 

General  Hunter 97 

General  Schofield 42 

Genus  Democrat 58 

Gettysburg 120 

Go,  and  God  speed  you 59 

Go  back  to  that  Old  Policy 25 

God  and  Mammon 60 

God  and  the  People 120 

God  must  for  ever  bless 150 

God  never  forsakes  his  People 119 

God's  Eternal  Justice 88 

God's  Revelations 35 

God's  Support 119 

God's  Will 118 

God  would  reveal  his  Will 35 

Good  Book-law 103 

Good-bye 170 


INDEX.  177 

PACK. 

Good  Temper 12 

Go,  Sacred  Thing 71 

Gradual  Emancipation 73,  97 

Great  Behemoth 71 

Great  Moral  Wrong in 

Gutberth  Bullitt -92 

Habeas  Corpus 39 

Half-insane  Mumbling 21 

Hard  Nut  to  crack 77 

Harper's  Ferry 22 

Hath  no  Relish  of  Salvation 71 

Hawked  at  and  Torn So 

Hedged  and  Hemmed  it  in 72 

He  from  whom  all  Blessings  flow ^    .  155 

He  that  observeth,  &c 132 

He  who  gathereth  not,  scattereth 27 

Highest  Merit  due  the  Soldier 166 

Hired  Labor 12 

His  Biography 143 

His  Mite 133 

His  Whiskers 145 

Hogs  and  Negroes 62 

Homoeopathic  Pills 29 

Honor  to  whom  Honor 165 

Hope 117 

Horace  Greeley 99,  149 

How  did  the  Fathers  acl? 17 

How  shall  we  Treat  the  South So 

How  should  it  be  Kept? 30 

Hudson 146 

Hunter's  Proclamation 53 

Ifs  and  Buts 36 

Illinois  a  little  Ahead 167 

Illinois  and  Michigan  Canal 134 

Inaugural  Address 151 

8*  L 


1 78  INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Increase  of  Colored  Population 104 

Independence  Hall 14,  146 

Insurrections 24 

Intemperance  in  the  Army 163 

Internal  Improvements 129 

Irrevocably  fixed 32 

I  shall  do  Nothing  in  Malice 96 

Is  Slavery  Unimportant 89 

Issue  with  the  South 28 

It  is  in  the  Constitution 68 

It  is  simply  a  War-measure 97 

I  will  suffer  Death 32 

Jefferson 87 

Jefferson  and  Adams 44 

Jefferson  and  Douglas  . 88 

Jefferson  never  thought  of 70 

Judgments  of  the  Lord  are  True 154 

Judge  not,  that  we  be  not  Judged 153 

Judicial  Decisions in 

Justice  of  the  People ....117 

Keep  Cool 27 

Keep  them  among  us  as  Underlings? 73 

Kept  out  of  the  Union 105 

Key  to  the  Mistake no 

Kicking  off  King  and  Lords 16 

Know  how  to  save  the  Union    . 150 

Knows  not  where  he  is 22 

Ladies 146 

Last  Interview  with  his  Friends 168 

Last  Speech  in  Public 167 

Last  Words 166 

Last  Writing 166 

Less  —  could  not  —  More  would  not 72 

Less  than  an  American 66 

Less  than  Two  Millions 137 


INDEX.  179 

TACK. 

Let  it  Stand  as  it  is 131 

Letter  hitherto  Unpublished 92 

Let  the  Fathers  answer 102 

Level  with  Mexico 33 

Liberia 73 

Liberty  of  all  Men 64 

Liberty's  Saving-clause 31 

Life  and  Limb 50 

Little  Woman 145 

Live  or  Die  by 14 

Local  and  Partial 130 

Local  Improvements 134 

Locate  nowhere 129 

Locked  and  Bolted  in Si 

Louisiana 156 

Lullaby  Argument 104 

Majority  rules 121 

Make  Profit  of  the  Negro 64 

Mammon  is  after  him 81 

Mankind  against  it no 

Marion's  Men 66 

Marry  your  Girls So 

Maryland  half  through 167 

Mason  and  Dixon 84 

Maternal  Gag 74 

Matter  of  Dollars  and  Cents 113 

McClcllan  not  to  blame 34 

Mexican  War 20 

Military  Elections 38 

Military  Necessity  to  have  Men  and  Money    ....  93 

Misleads  Nobody 133 

Missouri  Compromise 65 

Missouri  Radicals 38 

More  Devout  .     . 126 

More  Pegs  than  Holes 41 


ISO  INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Mouth  to  be  Fed " 

Mr.  Petitt 

Mr.  Polk  and  Chancellor  Kent *& 

My  Equal,  and  the  Equal  of  Judge  Douglas    ....       59 

My  Sacred  Rights 

Mystic  Chords  of  Memory 33 

National  or  State  Authority 3° 

Naturalization 

Naturally  Antislavery 

Nebraska  Bill 

Negro  a  Man ^ 

Negro  and  his  Money 

Negroes  and  Crocodiles 

Negro  is  not  my  Equal 

Negro  Livery-stable 

Negro  Suffrage 

Negro  :  White  man  :  :  Crocodile  :  Negro *>7 

New  Birth  of  Freedom 

New  Entanglement .     .     . 

New  Hampshire  and  Virginia J°9 

New  Lights     . 

New  Orleans  and  Buffalo 

Nine-tenths  of  all  the  Mulattoes 77 

No  Compromise 

No  Fear  of  Amalgamation 

No  Man  good  enough,  &c 

No  Mental  Reservations 

No  Precedent 

North,  South,  East,  West 

North-east  Station 

No  Slight  Occasion • 

Not  Enemies,  but  Friends 

Not  for  us  is  against  us 

Nothing  for  me,  Nothing  for  you X34 

Not  suited  to  Slave-labor 


INDEX.  iSl 

PAGE. 

Oath  paramount 124 

Obnoxious  Inequality 129 

Official  Oath 52 

Oglesby,  General 169 

"  Ohio  Statesman " 83 

One  Self-evident  Truth 109 

Onions  and  Potatoes 89 

Only  Loaf 18 

Opportunity  for  Condemnation 122 

Orsini 22 

Our  Father  will  decide 125 

Out  of  the  Abundance  of  his  Heart,  &c 63 

Overwhelm  the  Treasury 130 

Paramount  Object 148 

Passional  Attraction 29 

Patient 17 

Patrick's  New  Boots 130 

People  in  Mass 119 

People  the  only  Masters 122 

Perfect  Liberty 70 

Personal  Traits 147 

Phillips  and  Napoleon 55 

Physical  Facts  of  the  Case 35 

Platforms 146 

Policy  of  the  Fathers 25 

Folk's  Fever-dream 21 

Folk's  Five  Propositions 130 

Polygamy 15 

Poor  Whites 67 

Pope's  Bull  against  the  Comet 100 

Popular  Sovereignty 57 

Popular  Sovereignty  retrograde 113 

Popular  Vote 145 

Portentous  Consequences 137 

Precedents  and  Authorities  .  in 


1 83  INDEX. 

PAGE. 

Proclamation  legally  Valid 168 

Proclamation  of  Emancipation 98 

Professed  Union  Men 94 

Protection  to  Colored  Soldiers 96 

Rather  be  Assassinated 147 

Read  for  themselves 34 

Real  Knell  of  the  Union 101 

Reconstruction 45 

Red  Cotton  Handkerchief  a  Head 20 

Renomination 47 

Republican  National  Convention 144 

Rebublican  Robe  is  soiled 67 

Responsibility  to  our  Maker 51 

Restore  the  Missouri  Compromise 99 

Retribution  will  be  surely  given 96 

Returning  Fugitive  Slaves 42 

Return  their  Fugitive  Slaves 86 

Richard  M.  Johnson 81 

Right 46 

Right  and  Necessity 67 

Right  first,  Enforcement  after 107 

Rightful  Masters 123 

Right  makes  Might 84 

Rise  up,  and  call  us  Blessed 67 

Rough  Angles  of  the  War 94 

Rule  of  the  Minority 29 

Rushing  to  Arms 74 

Sacred  Right  of  Slavery 59 

Save  the  Union 100 

Save  your  Money 89 

Seal  and  Stamp  of  the  Almighty 85 

Sell  out  and  Buy  out 90 

Selfishness  and  Slavery 63 

Senator  or  President 14 

Separation  of  the  Races 108 


INDEX.  183 

PAGE. 

Serpent's  Eye 21 

Sheep  and  Wolf 56 

Sheet-anchor ......  19 

Ship  of  State 123 

Shrinking  from  Conclusions 138 

Silas  Wright 133 

Silent  Tongue  and  Clenched  Teeth 55 

Simple-minded  Soldier-boy 37 

Slave-dealer 61 

Slaveholders  and  Amalgamation 76 

Slavery 56 

Slavery  and  Climate 82 

Slavery  in  the  Territories 70 

Slavery  not  wrong,  Nothing  wrong 124 

Slavery  the  Source  of  Amalgamation 109 

Snaky  Contact 62 

Spots  about 129 

Squatter  Sovereignty 13 

Stake  played  for 103 

Stand  and  deliver 23 

Standard  Maxim 107 

Stand  by  Duty 84 

Stand  by  our  Guns 17 

Stand  by  the  Helm 123 

Stand  with  Anybody  that  stands  Right 65 

Stanton  and  McClellan 34 

Stick  to  the  Proposition 18 

Still  Americans 75 

Stone  of  Stumbling 77 

Strength  of  Republics 51 

Stuff  and  Preserve  his  Skin 58 

Success  of  Grant 49 

Sufficient  unto  the  Day,  &c. 112 

Sumner  and  the  Gavel 169 

Sumter,  Fort 166 


184  INDEX. 


PAGE. 

Support  of  the  People 123 

Takes  his  own  Time •  147 

Take  jour  Time 51 

Telegram .     .  144 

Tennessee  River 98 

Texas 106 

That  Shoot .     .     .  14 

The  Constitution 50 

The  Dead  Palsy • 92 

The  Declaration  a  Wreck 15 

The  Draft 47 

The  Liberal  Party 64 

Their  Life-long  Friend 113 

The  Negro 55 

The  Obligation 30 

The  plainest  Print  cannot  be  read  through  a  gold  Eagle  76 

The  Shepherd  as  a  Liberator 56 

The  War  Power 45 

Thomas  J.  Durant 92 

Three-fifths  Vote 68 

Throttled  the  Man 66 

Thunder-struck  and  Stunned 75 

Tobacco,  or  horned  Cattle no 

To  Move  from,  not  to  Remove  to 68 

To  the  Laws  and  Constitution 31 

Too  few  Arrests 37 

Toiling  up 119 

Tonnage  Duties 129 

Touch  neither  Sail  nor  Pump 94 

To  whom  it  may  Concern 48 

Three  Cheers  for  General  Grant 49 

Three  Ways  to  make  Peace 41 

Three  Years  more 50 

Traitor  forfeits  his  Slave 98 

Tree  of  Good  and  Evil  60 


INDEX.  185 

PAGE. 

Tremble  for  my  Country 88 

Turned  Tail,  and  ran 45 

Turns  unto  the  Gentiles ,     .     .  114 

Two  and  Two  do  not  make  Four 74 

Two  Heads  or  one  ? 26 

Two  hundred  and  fifty  Years  of  Unrequited  Toil     .     .  153 

Two  Strong  Hands 12 

Unfriendly  Legislation 14 

Union 26 

Union  or  Slavery 100 

Union-savers 76 

Utah 15 

Utah  and  New  Mexico 106 

Utica 146 

Vallandigham 37 

Vice-President 144 

Victories  of  March  and  April 154 

Washington,  Jefferson,  and  Madison 80 

Wash  it  White 67 

Waste  of  Time 43 

What  could  I  do? 99 

What  is,  and  What  may  be 56 

What  is  your  Proof  ?    .     .     .     . 24 

What  will  satisfy  them? 23 

What  will  Satisfy  the  South 85 

Which  Line  he  Fights  on 49 

White  Man's  Charter  of  Freedom 64 

Who  shall  Improve  ? 131 

Will  not  undertake  to  Judge 73 

Wild  Horses,  Buffaloes,  and  Bears 63 

Wily  Agitator f     .     .     .  37 

With,  but  not  without 40 

Without  a  Name 120 

Woe  unto  the  World,  &c 153 

Women  .                                        122 


l86  INDEX. 


TACK. 

\Vork  together 139 

Worthless  or  Worse     .     .     .     .     • 161 

Wrong  not  to  let  him  have  it 83 

Yates,  Senator 169 

You  have  no  Oath 28 


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